


Singed

by MaiKusakabe



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Marine Ace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-08 02:14:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 25,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3191492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaiKusakabe/pseuds/MaiKusakabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Commodore Portgas D. Ace thought his life was somewhat on track until he found himself stranded on an uninhabited island with a pirate who just wouldn't act as pirates are supposed to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well, first of all, I AM the same Mai Kusakabe from ffnet, before anyone thinks I'm stealing things. I decided I wanted an account here, and will be posting my works, starting with this story :)
> 
> Chapters 1-3 of this story were beta read by ffnet user Dearshul, and from chapter 4 onwards it was Aerle who beta read it :)

****

Marco the Phoenix sighed as he sat on the ship's railing, staring absentmindedly at the vast sea that extended as far as the sight could reach.

Two days ago, a call had arrived through a den den mushi asking for help at one of their islands, telling them about a pirate crew that had been able to defeat their local strongest fighters and had proclaimed the island as theirs.

That place wasn't like Fishman Island, with someone as strong as Jinbe to protect it, and so Whitebeard had dispatched both the first and second divisions, the later still without commander, to help.

It had been a disappointing fight.

Marco hadn't even needed to get serious to defeat the idiot who called himself captain of a barely known crew, and at the sight of how easily their captain was practically killed, the other pirates, that by then weren't in a very good shape either, had surrendered and promptly fled.

Marco had a feeling that crew would become one of many that left the New World to return to the relative safety of Paradise.

"Guys, marines!" That yell, coming from the crow’s nest, got his attention easily.

Maybe this trip wouldn't be completely disappointing.

 

* * *

 

Commodore Portgas D. Ace grinned at the news of a pirate ship in sight and, opposed to the anxiousness most of the marines felt when the ship was identifies as belonging to the Whitebeard Pirates, though it wasn't the Moby Dick itself, Ace's excitement just grew.

The fights were one of the few perks of being a marine, and the ship that, instead of fleeing, was now rapidly approaching them promised to give a good fight. With some luck there would even be one or two commanders on board.

He let the other officers take care of yelling orders and organize their offensive, not that cannonballs would do much against such a crew, and he tried to concentrate on his barely under control Kenbunshoku Haki to try to identify how many powerful enemies were there.

Leave it to the old geezer, just like with any other of his 'training' methods, to give his the most basic notions about how to control his haki before throwing him back into a ship, ignoring everyone's advice on the matter.

Ace's grin widened when he realized the average strength of the crew seemed to be far above that of any other pirate crew's he had encountered so far.

This promised to be fun.

 

* * *

 

Marco easily located the man he'd been looking for amongst the excited crewmembers moving hurriedly on deck, some taking things out of the way, others getting rid of the cannonballs before they could hit the ship and a few returned the fire, that had the same effect on the marines that it did on them.

"Teach!" He called.

Marshall D. Teach, carrying a plate with two pizzas he was rapidly devouring, turned to the approaching commander and grinned.

"Hey, Commander Marco! Ain't this great? And we were gettin' bored."

Marco returned the grin.

"Yeah. You're in charge of the second division. Defend the ship."

"Got'cha."

With that, Marco turned to holler orders at the first division, whose members cheered loud at the prospect of being on the attacking team. There were some indignant complaints from the second division, but not many, as they knew if the marines were half competent they would manage to board their ship, and barely any marine ship sailed the New World without at least a vice admiral on it.

Marco licked his lips in anticipation when he saw the ships were almost parallel to each other and at jumping distance for some.

With battle cries from both sides, the chaos began.

 

* * *

 

 

Ace, joining in the enthusiasm of his fellow marines, charged at the pirates invading the ship. At any other time he would have been really annoyed at the idea of being on the team protecting the ship, but against the Whitebeard Pirates he was sure most of the battle would take place on the marine vessel.

Stronger than average as these pirates were, they still didn't pose any challenge for him, just a fun way to release pent up energy, and he noticed most men seemed hesitant to approach him once his fire logia became evident to them.

A flash of blue above their heads drew most men's attention to the cloudy sky, and Ace watched in fascination as a flaming blue bird descended on the battleship, its whole body with the exception of the wings turning into a human male form a mere instant before he took out two captains and tens of soldiers with a powerful kick.

Ace grinned fiercely, immediately recognizing the man as Marco the Phoenix, and, distractedly shooting a column of fire at a group of pirates, started running in that direction.

“Portgas!”

Ace stopped, grimaced and turned around to face a stern-looking vice admiral Onigumo. He gave his superior his best grin, but it had never worked on the man.

“Yes, Sir?”

“You’re supposed to defend the ship, not run head first into battle.” The vice admiral scolded him.

Ace held the impulse of making a childish gesture at the man.

“But, Sir, the men won’t be able to beat him.”

A glare told him to shut up.

“I’ll take care of him, you do your job.”

Without another word, the vice admiral left. Ace stuck his tongue out at his retreating back, followed it with his middle finger and sent another column of fire at a group of pirates who tried to attack him.

That man was always stealing all the fun guys from him.

 

* * *

 

Marco kicked another marine away, sending him straight at a group of them that, at the strength of the impact, went flying several feet backwards.

Smirking, he threw his body to the side right in time to avoid ten swords that would have pierced him otherwise, and directed his smirk at the tall man with the spider arms coming out of his body that had just attacked him.

_Vice admiral Onigumo, if I’m not wrong._

Marco dodged another swing of the blades and let the next attack cut him just for the satisfaction of seeing the marine’s frustrated expression when his body healed and no trace of the wounds was left.

At the next attack, Marco ducked out of the path of all the swords but one that he stopped with his foot, using enough strength to send the vice admiral flying into the ship’s mast.

He barely had any time to bask in the surprised and horrified gasps of the marines surrounding him when a powerful explosion rocked the ocean and the ships floating there, the noise enough to momentarily deafen all those standing on both ships.

A deathly silence, not entirely as a result of the explosion still ringing in his ears, fell on the battlefield. No one moved for long moments and then Marco slowly turned around, for the light after the detonation had come from his back, from the other ship. His crew’s ship.

There, smoke still clearing and a couple of small fires no one was trying to put off coming to life, were several bodies strewn over the wrecked part of the deck, marines and pirates alike, and from all the crumbled forms, from all the mangled, bloodied and partially burnt bodies, Marco’s eyes stopped on the first face he could see and recognize.

On top of a crumbled crate, legs twisted at an impossible angle, was Teach, his head open and blood covering the wood beneath it, unseeing eyes staring what seemed to be straight at Marco.

Instinct kicking in through the shock, Marco ducked before he could be conscious of why he was doing it, but he wasn’t fast enough and a cold, emptying metal closed around his wrist as he felt a fire dying inside of him. For what he was fast enough was to pull his arm with enough strength to free his restraint from the hand holding it and dodge the blades aimed for his body.

Marco rolled on the floor and stood up again, facing vice admiral Onigumo, who looked at him with a smug expression, five swords in hand, four handcuffs hanging from four of his spidery hands and the tenth one empty, the handcuffs it had held now clamped around Marco’s right wrist.

An entirely different silence occupied the battlefield, broken by an enthusiastic marine’s victorious exclamation, followed soon by those of many others.

Marco barely registered the worried exclamations of his crewmembers. He pressed his heels on the floor for less than could be measured and took the necessary impulse to launch himself at Onigumo, his speed so that when the marine officer started to raise his swords he already had a sandal pressed against his face, and once again found himself flying through the ship’s deck.

“As if this changes anything.” Marco practically growled, his playful mood gone with the events of the past minute.

 

* * *

 

Ace had to hold in a laugh at the sight of the vice admiral flying across the deck. _Again_. And this time it couldn’t even be blamed on the pirate’s devil fruit.

“That guy’s cool.” He whistled in a low voice, but apparently not low enough.

“Commodore!” Yelled a nearby soldier, an appalled expression on his face.

Ace chuckled.

“Sorry.”

Kicking an attacking pirate, this time Ace managed to hold his comments when the blond pirate grabbed a sword from the floor and parried Onigumo’s next attack, and the marines’ momentary boost in confidence vanished when the vice admiral was punched through a wall. By Marco’s right hand. And the moment the loose cuff hit the officer’s face, his added arms disappeared and the swords he had once again managed to hold with all of them clattered to the floor.

Ace was expecting the pirate to go after his superior and finish the job, which he wouldn’t have really complained about, but the man stopped, looked around for a moment, and then surprised everybody by yelling at the top of his lungs for all his men to go back to their ship.

Several stupid blinks later, all the pirates complied without question while half of the marines still stared uncomprehendingly at the pirate commander, who now was kicking away, and in most cases overboard, any marine who had reacted and tried to attack the retreating pirates.

Ace looked around, trying to see what had prompted that strange reaction and half expecting to see a Yonko’s ship or something of the sort, but there was nothing strange, just the dark clouds on the sky and the ocean’s waves.

Then it all happened in a matter of seconds.

The waves grew, moving faster and faster at each hit to the ships, and rain started to pour down, so fast and so much that it seemed as if part of the ocean itself was falling down on them, and instead of just rocking the ship, a wave hit it with suck strength that it almost capsized it, the ship leaning so much to the side that most men lost their footing, and those standing close to the side, Ace included, fell over the side, plunging down to the ocean.

Ace’s eyes widened in shock as he tried to transform and use his fire to propel himself up on deck again just to realize that the thick rain falling from the sky put out any fire before it could come out of his body.

And, just like everyone else, Ace hit the surface of the water and the currents took control over his motionless body.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention this in the first chapter, but this story happens right before when Thatch would have died in canon. I made an estimation, and that would have been around Loguetown/Twin Capes, so I decided the story begins just after Luffy's first bounty comes out.

Ace groaned, raising an arm in a futile attempt to block the light assaulting his eyes as he turned around just to get his face full of sand.

That woke him up instantly.

He sat up, opening his eyes and closing them again at the glare of the sun, covering them again with an arm.

Ace groaned again.

Using his free hand to feel the ground he was sitting on, and by the salty smell assaulting him, it was easy to guess he was at a beach.

He guessed that was to be expected after falling into the sea, provided the two most likely options of drowning or being rescued and hauled back to the ship didn’t happen.

“You awake?”

Ace jumped at the unknown voice and turned around, managing to open his eyes as soon as the sun rays weren’t falling directly on his face.

There, standing mere feet away with a serious expression and a roll of thick wire held in one hand, was none other than Marco the Phoenix.

Ace’s mouth fell open.

Marco smirked slightly.

Ace closed his mouth and glared.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” He ground out.

The pirate didn’t have the decency to stop smirking as he answered.

“Same as you: almost drowning.”

Ace couldn’t tell if it was the shock finally fading, some remaining emotion from the previous battle or simply that damned smirk and the pirate’s completely calm attitude, but, whatever the reason, he jumped up and went straight for the man, fist raised with clear intentions. Marco dropped the wire, stopped his punch and delivered a kick to Ace’s stomach that sent him backwards.

Growling, Ace covered his arms in fire and went for another attack, but before he could react he found himself on his back, part of his body submerged in inches of water that reached to his ears on the head, and two hands holding his arms, a kairoseki cuff pressed against his skin. The unpleasant emptiness that came with the sea and the metal filled him, and the fire wouldn’t come no matter how much he called for it.

“Don’t be stupid.” Marco said, and Ace glared up at him. “I may not be able to use my power, but I can still beat you.”

“Wanna bet on that?” Ace challenged him.

Now it was Marco who glared.

“Do you really want to get in a fight? Take a look around.”

The man moved away from on top of him, a hand still holding Ace’s arm and pressing the kairoseki against it.

Ace tried to pull away from it, but when that didn’t work he reluctantly did as the pirate told him.

As he had guessed, they were at a beach. A small, beautiful beach with almost white sand, some rocks covering it until they disappeared in a nearby line of trees of what seemed to be the beginning of a forest.

Covering the sand were scattered objects, most of them broken pieces of wood or scraps of metal, but sometimes there were other things, like the roll of wire Marco had been carrying, a wooden crate or a cannonball. Most of these objects were piled next to the biggest rock and, a little further in the sand, three other men lay: two marines and a pirate.

“Are they unconscious too?”

“No.”

Ace fell silent, the curse words that came to his mind too shallow to utter.

It was stupid, he was used to men dying in battle all the time, he had no doubt that dozens of them, if not more, had died at the battle between their two ships, and still, the sight of the three bodies laying there, looking so peaceful in such a place, no blood, weapons or burnt marks marking the ground as proof of a battle, was both sobering and disheartening at the same time.

If anything had been even the slightest bit different, he could be one of them right now.

After what seemed hours but couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, Ace finally spoke.

“It’s ironic that the two devil fruit users are the ones to survive.”

“Yeah.” Marco said, his hold on Ace loosening slightly.

All of a sudden the marine didn’t want to fight.

“Shouldn’t we… bury them?” Ace asked, turning his head to look at Marco, who nodded.

“I found a nearby clearing on the forest.”

“Good.”

Marco let go of him, probably sensing Ace wasn’t going to attack him, and both men stood up, a silent truce between them as they headed toward the three dead men that should have had more chances of survival, none of them being dead weight in the ocean as they were.

 

* * *

 

Marco rubbed his forehead with his sleeve as he stood up once the last grave had been refilled with the soil they had removed earlier and marked with several stones.

The labor itself shouldn’t have been that hard, but the waves hadn’t brought to land anything remotely similar to a shovel, and that meant they had been forced to dig with wood pieces and occasionally with their hands, but finally it was done and the three dead men were as properly buried as the situation allowed it. Which was a provisional arrangement, at least for poor William, who the crew would bury properly once they were all here. The least he deserved was a coffin.

Marco could feel his companion’s restlessness even before the young man spoke.

“Well, that’s it, I’m leaving.” The marine said gruffly, throwing the wood piece he’d been using to the ground.

“Don’t bother, this island is uninhabited.” Marco said, guessing what the other intended to do.

The dark-haired man blinked.

“What?”

“I’ve been here before, no humans have lived on this island for years.”

It had taken some time, but Marco finally had guessed in which island they had ended. It was a small place, barely more than a rock, almost completely covered by a forest. A beautiful but not friendly forest inhabited by not so friendly animals. The good thing was that there was more than enough food and drinking water.

“Yeah, and I’m just gonna believe you.” The man almost spat, crossing his arms moodily over his chest.

If he hadn’t been convinced before, the current display would be enough to prove to Marco that this marine was one of the most stubborn people he had ever met.

“You can check it yourself, this island is small enough to walk from one end to the other in less than half a day. I’ll be right here when you see I’m right.”

That comment earned him a glare.

“As if I need your help. I know how to survive in a forest just fine.” And, without another word, the boy turned around and left.

Marco chuckled at the kid’s retreating form. He was an interesting piece for a marine, and with the strength he had displayed at the beach the pirate didn’t doubt the young man would survive perfectly at an average forest.

But Marco was sure he couldn’t survive in this particular forest, not as he was right now at least.

Deciding the brat needed a blow to the face from reality to get his pride down a notch or two, Marco turned to go to the beach in search of some things he didn’t want to abandon for the island’s inhabitants to trample on.

 

* * *

 

Ace sucked the last crumbs of meat off the bone he held in one hand. Had he been Luffy, he would have eaten the bone along with everything else, but he threw it on the ground as he had done with all the others.

He had barely stopped to catch a meal and had cooked it with his power as he ate. If the pirate had been right, which Ace was very reluctant to consider, then he still had a couple of hours to walk before he reached the coast again.

Ace was inclined to believe, as much as it pained him to admit, the other man's words about the island's lack of inhabitants, but unfortunately he still wasn't used to his haki enough to tell for sure in such a big place, he could barely tell apart the presences in half of it, but he would be damned before admitting that to a pirate, much more to take said pirate's word for true without checking.

And he didn't need the man's help.

Eyes opening like saucers, Ace threw himself to the side just in time to avoid a huge and fast paw that collided with the place where he had just been with enough strength to create a crater.

_What the-?_

This time Ace had to duck from a hind leg belonging to a ridiculously huge bear with way too big teeth.

Annoyed, Ace turned his arms into fire and threw two columns of it at the bear, but right before they impacted the beast vanished from its place and Ace would have been crushed if he wasn't a logia user that wasn't caught completely unaware.

Ace tried to surround the bear this time, but again it evaded him, and this time it tired to bite his arm off, jumping back the moment Ace turned it to fire, and the man frowned when he noticed the bear hadn't burned itself.

Then the bear's eyes opened wide and it fell in a boneless heap to the ground.

Ace stared at the blond pirate standing behind the bear, a hand up and an almost lazy expression on his face.

Ace glared.

"What are _you_ doing here?"

"Saving your ass, apparently." The pirate answered nonchalantly, and Ace's glare intensified.

"I didn't need saving."

"Really? And here I'd got the impression if you weren't a logia you'd be dead already."

"But I _am_ a logia."

"And what will you do? Stay awake all the time to make sure nothing gets you or risk it when you fall asleep that nothing stronger than you will attack?" The man asked in a clearly mocking tone, and Ace grit his teeth.

He wasn't an idiot, he knew that bear had been stronger than him, and what the pirate was saying was without having in account his little issue with sleep.

"I guess you have a better idea?" Ace asked, fists clenched at his unspoken admission of defeat.

The blond man smiled, and though Ace felt surprised that it wasn't a mocking smirk he didn't show it.

Raising his right hand, the pirate asked:

"How are you at picking locks? It isn't really my thing."

"As if I would get that thing off you!" Ace snarled. "You'd fly off and leave me here the moment it’d be off!"

The other man just shrugged, and Ace had the impression he had been expecting that reaction.

"Then what about this? We stick together, as I told you I've been here before, and in exchange you act as my personal heater." Ace flushed indignantly but was cut off before he could yell anything. "Not like that." The man gave his body a very obvious once over. "Though I wouldn't complain." Ace's retort was cut again. "I meant with your powers."

Ace blinked.

"Oh. But it's warm here."

A raised eyebrow.

"You're a walking heater. But you're right, the day is warm enough, but this is a spring island and, if I'm not mistaken, in its spring season. Nights are bound to be cold, and without my powers I'm exposed to it just like anybody else."

Ace had to concede that the explanation made sense.

"So now what? We go to the beach and try to stop a ship?"

That comment earned him what probably was the man's equivalent of an 'are you stupid?' expression.

"This is the New World, brat. You really think that's smart?"

Ace thought of it. Most pirate ships, at the sight of a marine and a famous Whitebeard pirate with kairoseki handcuffs would try to kill them. Marines too, probably branding Ace a traitor for not killing the criminal. As if he hadn't tried. Ace didn't doubt they could beat a good part of those people, that if the pirate didn't turn against him, but any ship sailing this ocean, if it survived the battle, couldn't be handled by just two men.

"Then what?" He asked reluctantly, crossing his arms.

"I'm going to wait for my crew."

Ace blinked, now utterly confused.

"Your crew?"

"They should be looking for the missing men by now."

Ace would have commented on the absurdity of that statement, not even the marines looked for the men lost to the sea, but he knew of the Whitebeard Pirates' uncommon view of their crew, but he hadn't expected it to be like this. Marco had sounded so sure of his statement that Ace didn't want to contradict him.

Instead, he said:

"I guess I'll have to build a raft then." A raised eyebrow was his only response, and Ace felt compelled to clarify: "And don't think I trust you just because I'm agreeing to this."

The pirate smiled.

"I didn't doubt it."

 

* * *

 

To say Edward Newgate was worried would be an understatement. He had ordered his ships to turn around the moment the call had arrived. It had come as soon as the other ship managed to escape the storm, and they were still counting their losses, but some things were already clear: they had eleven confirmed deaths, and several men were missing, Marco being amongst them.

Whitebeard wasn't the only one worried, the whole crew was, and they were already calling their allies to tell them to keep an eye out for any member of the crew as their ships headed to the approximate area where the battle took place.

Several feet in front of him, Thatch paced in circles.

"Calm down, son."

"I can't calm down!" Thatch practically spat, a proof of how anxious he was, and continued pacing. "What the fuck was that idiot thinking?! First he gets shackled and then thrown into the ocean?! He's an anchor!"

Whitebeard agreed wholeheartedly with his son's words, but he had known Marco long enough to know the man wouldn't die that easily.

He had to remind himself of that almost every minute.


	3. Chapter 3

Vice admiral Onigumo glared at the front of the ship, where those marines that weren’t in such a bad shape were doing basic reparations.

He was displeased at the result of the battle mere hours ago. Of course, it was a good thing that his ship had resisted the sudden appearance of that tornado, but no one had seen the other ship sinking, which meant it could have escaped as well. Right now the infirmary was filled with injured men, and two storerooms now housed the bodies of the deceased marines that had remained on the ship after the storm. Those bodies would be returned to their families, and once they had taken inventory of the disappeared men their families would be notified.

That was another reason to be displeased or, more accurately, extremely apprehensive. It wasn’t his task to notify about deaths to the families, but in this case there was an exception: Portgas D. Ace was one of the missing men and, as much as the vice admiral would feel much more relaxed without that annoying, rebellious brat on board, the boy’s only known relative was none other than the hero of the marines, vice admiral Monkey D. Garp. As the man was a high-ranking marine, it was Portgas’ superior’s job to notify him.

Onigumo dreaded that conversation.

 

* * *

 

 

Ace looked curiously at the crate the pirate had left leaning against a tree before coming to his not needed rescue. He was convinced it was the same one he had noticed upon waking, and peering inside he saw it was filled with several of the other objects that had drifted ashore. There were clay and glass containers broken but that appeared still capable of fulfilling their purpose, the roll of wire the pirate had carried when Ace first woke, bits of broken rope, some longer than others, pieces of ripped fabric and weapons. A couple of guns, a broken sword, what seemed to be an intact knife and even two cannon balls.

“What’re the weapons for?” Ace asked, curiosity making him forget who his companion was.

The pirate shrugged.

“You never know what youmight need.”

That said, the pirate lifted the crate and started to walk away. Frowning, Ace followed the man.

“Hey, brat,” the blond spoke after a while of walking in silence, “what’s your name?”

“Why do you care?” Ace spat.

“You’d rather I keep calling you ‘brat’?”

Ace frowned, willing to recognize he didn’t like to be called that way. Too many people did, and he thought it unfair, as if by doing so they didn’t recognize his strength and accomplishments.

“… Ace. Portgas D. Ace.”

“D?”

Ace turned his head to see the man had a raised eyebrow. His frown deepened.

“Got a problem with that?”

“No. It’s just interesting.”

And, ignoring Ace’s stare, the pirate didn’t explain further.

It wasn’t long before Ace started to hear the telltale sound of water running. Had he been back at the forest with Luffy, or even with his fellow marines, Ace would have run forward to see the source of the sound as soon as possible, his almost empty canteen heavy on his belt, but as things were, he held back the impulse and waited until their steps, marked by the other man’s relaxed pace, brought them there. He wasn’t about to walk behind him, but neither would he expose his back. Ace ignored the small part of his mind reminding him that Marco had already beat him once that day and that exposing or not exposing his back wouldn’t make much of a difference if the man decided to attack him.

The source of the sound was a thin waterfall pouring down into a small lake from which two slim streams were born and headed out in different directions.

Half into the lake, drinking its water, was a pack of enormous animals resembling but not quite being hippopotamus. Ace could count ten of them. The animals looked up at them, and neither man was surprised when they attacked, no doubt defending what was their territory.

Ace tensed, ready to burn them and scare them with his fire or, better yet, turn them into dinner. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Marco readying to fight as well, but the man didn’t let go of the crate and Ace snorted at his apparent overconfidence. He didn’t have time to do much more before he was forced to jump out of the way. He fell down on top of one of the animals, turning his whole body into fire and grinning when the hippopotamus howled in pain, the sound dying as the animal did as well, and Ace called down the fire when it fell.

There was dinner.

The spectacle was enough to scare the rest off, and they ran away as fast as their bodies would allow, neither Ace nor Marco bothering to go after them.

Ace turned to the other man.

“You didn’t fight.” He reproached.

The blond shrugged.

“You did the job just fine.”

“Well, then this is _my_ dinner.” He pointed at the dead and already cooked hippopotamus. “Don’t touch it.”

The pirate looked indifferently at him and walked to a tree closer to the lake’s shore.

“Fine, I’ll just get something else.”

Ace followed the man with his eyes as he knelt down to leave the crate on the ground and took out one of the containers. He watched as the other filled it with water and drank, for an instant wondering if that water was really good for drinking, but put that thought away. Those animals had been drinking here, and hadn’t the pirate said he had been on this island before?

Marco turned to him and smirked. Ace felt uneasy.

“Oh, Ace?” the younger man resisted the urge to fidget, suddenly uncomfortable. “That is _my_ crate.” The pirate pointed to said object. “Don’t touch it.”

Ace’s temper flared.

“As if I wanted to!”

 

* * *

 

 

Thirteen confirmed deaths, the bodies on the ship to prove it. Eight missing men, Marco being one of them.

Thatch sat on a chair at the end of the infirmary that acted now as the improvised morgue, staring at the mangled body of Marshall D. Teach. The man had been a member of the crew for many years, one of the people that had been on board for longer, already being part of the crew back in the times when Roger still lived and they fought the man’s crew on a regular basis. After the death of the previous second division commander, Pops had offered the position to the man, but Teach had refused, saying it wasn´t his thing, and no one had insisted, respecting his decision.

Now Thatch felt selfish, even cruel, wishing no real commander would occupy one of those beds. He didn’t want anybody else occupying them, but out of all the possibilities, seeing Marco there was the scariest of all.

The man wasn’t only his brother, he had been his best friend for years, and Thatch would drag his ass back from the realm of the dead to beat the shit out of him if he had dared to go and die on him.

Biting his lips, refusing to cry when everything was still so uncertain, the fourth division commander buried his face in his hands.

 

* * *

 

Marco smiled, amused, seeing the young marine draw a line on the ground between them with a stick.

“Don’t pass from there.” The brat, Ace, growled, and his glare hardened when he noticed the pirate’s expression.

“Of course not.” Marco assured him. He could have teased him, but their forced interactions had made it clear Ace’s temper was less than short, and the boy had kept his part of the agreement: he was close enough for Marco to feel the warmth emanating from his body and three fires were alight close to Marco. Having a logia fire user at hand was useful, undoubtedly easier than lighting the fire the old-fashioned way, especially without a lighter to make things easier.

Huffing, Ace dropped onto the hard ground and turned his back on Marco, who took the opportunity to have a closer look at him. He had snuck glances at the boy here and there, but they had been fast not to attract his attention. Marco wasn’t afraid of him, but seeing his obvious temper he had no doubt the marine could be a real pain in the ass, a prickly pain in the ass.

A curious, prickly pain in the ass, to be more precise.

The brat was an enigma.

First of all he was strong. Stronger than Onigumo, that was for sure, but still he had been on the vice admiral’s ship, meaning he had a lower rank than the man, as two vice admirals never traveled together on the same ship unless there was some special circumstances, and those circumstances could never be kept from the rest of the world. Marco hadn’t heard the marines were up for anything different than usual. Not to mention, if there was a vice admiral like Ace he would be known, and probably feared by many pirates. Marco had never heard rumors of a ridiculously strong fire user, and that meant that, at least in the New World, the kid wasn’t known.

Then there was the D in his name. Marco didn’t know the story attached to that particular letter, but he knew there was one, a story his father did know and regarded as not only interesting, but important. Even if Marco hadn’t believed the supposed story to mean anything, though he thought it did, he had all the people he knew with that letter in their name as examples. The most notorious was Gol D. Roger, the late Pirate King, a man strong enough to have fought his father himself on equal terms. And Marco hadn’t missed the government’s attempt to make that letter disappear from his name. Monkey D. Garp, the hero of the marines, was another monster capable of fighting Roger on multiple occasions and was also said to be the man who had captured him. Marco didn’t believe that one, but the man’s strength was unquestionable. Then, there had been Marshall D. Teach, a pang stung Marco’s chest when he remembered the man was now dead, who, despite not having been a haki user like the previous two men, had been strong enough to be offered a position as a division commander. Ace was strong too, ridiculously so for someone who had to be in his early twenties, and was a haki user. Not for too long, if his use of the skill was an indicator, but it would improve with time and practice. He wasn’t only strong, but fearless and reckless. Those seemed to be shared traits amongst the people with the D in their names, too.

And last, but what puzzled Marco the most, was the brat’s attitude. Not his attempt to defeat him or his general rudeness, those were to be expected, but the complete lack of comments about justice, about taking him down for the benefit of the world, and about the World Government. For all his barbs, insults and snappish remarks, that hadn’t been few as they settled down and ate, Ace hadn’t mentioned the marines, the government or the supposed ‘justice’ they stood for even once. With the notorious exception of Garp and his occasional fight with Whitebeard, Marco had never been in the presence of a marine for more than five minutes without hearing at least a mention of one or several of those.

This dark haired kid, with the too tight marine uniform pressed around his muscles, his grumpy attitude and the completely out of place freckles that made him look more boyish than he probably liked, was a puzzle, and Marco liked puzzles. Especially when he was trapped with said puzzle on an uninhabited island with nothing more to do than wait for his crew to find him.

And he was fun to rile up. That was a nice bonus.

Marco decided to lay down and try to sleep now that he could, as something told him it would be hard to do so once morning came and his companion woke up again. He laid back on the torn sail he had placed on the ground, his head resting on the makeshift pillow he had made out of the smaller ripped pieces of fabric he had found at the beach, and pulled another piece of sail over his body, acting as an improvised blanket.

Ace’s glare when he saw the pillow had been priceless, and Marco grinned again at the memory of it, convinced as he had been back then that the boy’s pride had been the only thing preventing him from asking Marco if he could use the remaining fabric to make another pillow.


	4. Chapter 4

Waking up to the smell of food beat doing so due to the sun any time, and Ace swallowed the excess of saliva that had accumulated in his mouth, sitting up and snapping his eyes open, glad that there was no sun to bother him this time, as it was still low enough for the trees to block it.

His mood soured considerably once he realized the wonderful smell came from some animal that damned pirate was cooking over one of his fires, using an improvised structure the man had assembled together with some branches the night before so it wouldn’t burn. And it hadn’t, as the smell of burned meat was nowhere to be found in the smoke drifting in his direction.

Ace’s stomach growled loudly, reminding him that a whole night of not eating was unacceptable, and demanding to be fed.

The blond pirate turned his head at that, and smiled at him. Ace glared.

“Are you hungry?”

“I can catch my own food.” He growled, just at the same time as his stomach did. The other man’s smile changed, and Ace was sure he was laughing at him. His glare intensified.

“I don’t doubt that, but your stomach doesn’t seem willing to wait.”

“It’ll wait, I don’t need your charity.”

Despite the pirate’s strange eyebrows, the man didn’t seem to have any problem to raise one further.

“I’m a pirate, I don’t do charity. You can come and eat breakfast, then catch lunch or something later, or we can continue this stupid thing of eating separately and waste food.”

Much to his frustration, Ace had to admit the man had a point. Contrary to Ace’s bottomless stomach, Marco hadn’t eaten the whole animal he had caught the night before, and Ace’s pride had prevented him from taking the remaining meat, no matter how much he had wanted to.

Sighing, the young marine stood up and walked to the fire.

“Alright, but we’ll get one meal each.” He said, refusing to be in anyone’s debt, much less a damned pirate’s.

The blond man just smiled and gestured for Ace to sit down.

 

* * *

 

Ace grumbled, thinking that he shouldn’t have made it so obvious he didn’t want to be dependent on the other man. Now he was lying on the ground, his chest and stomach covered with all the clay pots and bowls Marco had collected, filled with water as much as their broken shapes could take, while Ace carefully controlled his flames right under his skin to boil it.

After breakfast, the pirate had uttered a very colorful string of curses and stated they were both idiots. Before Ace could retort at how the only idiot there was the other man, Marco had said that they didn’t know how long they would be there and, though the water _was_ drinkable, it would be safer to purify it, just in case. Ace had been drinking safely from streams and rivers his whole life and had never been sick, but wisely remembered that this was the New World. Seeing the animals and plants, he really didn’t want to risk it and discover what sort of diseases could be found here.

And that was why he was now in this undignified position, using his fire powers to boil as much water as possible.

The pirate had left with a couple of glass jars saying he would look for any recognizable fruits to eat.

 

* * *

 

 

Marco came back to the small lake carrying a jar full of a variety of green bananas found in this island and the other filled with plums. He remembered this island had a wider variety of fruits from the crew’s previous stop here, but for today these would do. The young marine was a walking black hole, not that it surprised Marco, and what he carried, that would last two people with a normal appetite for a week if they accompanied it with meat, wouldn’t probably last until dinner.

Luckily, he had found other trees that had fruit besides the two where he had picked the fruit today, or they would run out of it in less than a week.

Marco wasn’t stupid, and he knew it was likely that such an amount of time, if not more, would pass before his crew found him. There were a lot of islands near the area where the battle had occurred, most of them small, but big enough that it would take hours to search them, because Pops would want to be completely sure none of his sons were really there and not rely completely on haki. And this particular island wasn’t one of the closest to the battle. If it weren’t for the strange and sometimes unpredictable currents in this ocean, they wouldn’t even have reached the shore alive.

Marco’s thoughts left the rescue party when he arrived at camp and found Ace sitting with his back to him, the clay containers now left next to the crate.

 

* * *

 

 

Ace cursed, glared at the pirate and cursed again.

This was the fifth log had he burned accidentally, his supposed raft consisting of two meager pieces of wood tied together by some of the rope that drifted into the beach the previous day.

He dropped the now charred log, kicking it once it was on the ground, and turned to glare again at the annoying pirate when the man chuckled.

Instead of doing something productive, and here Ace conveniently ignored that there wasn’t anything productive to do, the irritating man was leaning against a tree, watching his efforts and not bothering to hide his amusement at Ace’s misfortune.

He was sure not even half of the logs would have caught fire if the man wasn’t watching.

“What’s so funny, asshole?” Ace growled.

Marco smiled at him, completely unfazed by his glare.

 

* * *

 

 

The ship that had been affected by the explosion and the storm was in no condition to take part in the search, and so they left it docked at the first island the crew reached, half of their shipwrights staying there to work on it.

The island was a relatively small one, with only two towns and some isolated houses on it.

Whitebeard’s sons scattered across it as soon as they stepped on land, searching for any information about their missing crewmembers or, better yet, the men themselves.

The captain himself stayed behind with the men in charge to watch the ships and the ones who had spread maps across the deck to organize the search in the nearby islands and to coordinate the routes of their available ships.

And, once the search in this island was done, there was a burial to be held.

 

* * *

 

 

Marco was bored, and he had no issues admitting it. Being stranded at an uninhabited island with his powers blocked wasn’t exactly his idea of a good time, even less if his only company refused to talk for anything that wasn’t hurling insults at him. The marine had a vast vocabulary in the topic, Marco would give him that, but it didn’t make the situation much more entertaining.

He could always go beat something up, but he had already caught dinner and it hadn’t been all that satisfying either. Or long.

In his boredom, Marco’s eyes looked around, in search of something of interest, and they landed on the young marine.

Ace was asleep, he didn’t seem to have any trouble to fall asleep as soon as he laid down, sprawled on the ground and snoring softly. Due to his fire power, he didn’t need to cover himself, and that gave Marco a good view to look at. He had already noticed Ace was good looking, he did so the moment he pulled the boy’s unconscious body completely out of the sea, but now he had time to look at him more closely.

Without the permanent scowl marring his face, Ace looked much younger than when he was awake, the freckles dusting his cheeks giving him a boyish appearance that, the pirate guessed, would earn him a column of fire in his direction if he ever said it out loud. He might try if things became more boring, or he could try to discover if the young marine was interested in men at all.

Being alone in this island with a hot young man reminded Marco painfully of how long it had been since he had last got laid, and he almost regretted acting responsible in the crew and making sure the supplies were bought in the last three stops they had done.

Maybe not having sex, though it would be a nice bonus, but, Marco thought, getting to know the snoring man close to him would be far more interesting than staring at rocks while he waited for his crew to find him.

 

* * *

 

 

Ace looked up from his breakfast when the pirate sat next to him.

"What do you want?" He snapped.

"To talk."

Ace looked suspiciously, and slightly confused, at him. Nothing had happened that would require them to talk.

"About what?"

The other man shrugged.

"Anything."

Ace blinked and then scowled. Anything? Did he want to have a conversation with him or something like that?

Scowl deepening, he took another bite off of his meal.

"Why would I want to talk to you?"

"Aren't you bored?"

The answer to that question was obvious, as this place was far from the most thrilling he had been at, but that didn't mean he was going to admit it or talk to the pirate. He had spent a good part of his childhood, whenever he wasn't with Sabo and before meeting the other boy, alone, before Luffy forced his way into Ace's life and stole any moment of quiet he might have had.

Without giving an answer, he continued to eat.

The man didn't go away.

"Why did you become a marine?" Ace looked up, but didn't stop eating, and the blond kept talking. "Was it for some deep-rooted belief in justice? Did you suffer due to a pirate and now want revenge?"

Realizing the man wouldn't leave him alone just because Ace didn't want to talk to him, he sighed. Was being a selfish bastard a requisite to be a pirate? Probably not entirely. Luffy was no bastard, but he was really selfish, probably the most selfish person he had ever met.

"My gramps is a marine."

"Oh?" The blond turned his head, as if expecting Ace to say something else, but he didn't. "And that's it?"

"No."

"But you won't tell me."

"It's nothing of your business." Ace spat, his mood souring at the reminder of what prompted him to become a marine. "It's as if I asked you why you became a pirate."

"Freedom."

Ace's head snapped to the side, confusion plain at the unexpected word as he stared at the man.

"What?"

"That's why I became a pirate, I wanted freedom."

Having recovered from his momentary shock at the absurd answer, Ace spoke.

"You're a wanted man that'll be executed as soon as you get caught, that doesn't sound like much freedom to me."

Marco smiled at him.

"I'm a wanted man because the government doesn't approve of my freedom. But what they say doesn't matter, I'm living as I dreamed to, and that's what's important."

Right then, Ace's mind transformed Marco's calm and contented smile into a widely grinning boy, the echo of an impossible dream that the world would try to stop at any cost, yelled for everybody to hear resounding in his ears.

Pushing himself up, Ace stomped into the forest, forgetting his half-eaten breakfast.

 

* * *

 

 

Marco followed Ace's retreating back with his eyes. The boy had been incredulous and puzzled, probably having expected Marco to say he was a pirate for the money or the fame, but then that freckled face had adopted a strange expression, and the pirate knew the marine wasn't seeing him. It was as if Marco's words had triggered a memory or a thought, one so important that the boy had even forgotten about his meat.

But what had it been? That it didn't matter what the government, and by extension half of the world, thought about him? Or that he was living his dream?

He couldn’t think of anything that could make a marine react like that at his words, it wasn’t unheard of for a pirate to speak about freedom or what being a pirate brought them aside from money or fame.

Whatever the answer, it was something else to add to the mystery that was Portgas D. Ace.


	5. Chapter 5

Cursing repeatedly, Ace punched an unfortunate tree that went down with a thunderous thump, hitting another one on its way down and snapping off one of its branches.

"Freedom, fucking freedom." He growled, kicking the fallen trunk with enough strength to break the bark, his foot getting momentarily trapped into the hole it had dug in the tree.

A conversation from long ago, when it had already been only Luffy and Ace left to live and fight in that forest, came to mind.

They had spent several nights out, much to Dadan's annoyance, and Ace had decided to voice a thought that had been in his mind for months at that point.

"Why do you want to be the Pirate King?" He had asked, looking down at his uneaten fish.

Luffy devoured the one he had and grabbed another from next to the fire.

"What d’you mean?" The younger boy asked, all the while eating. They were so used to talk with their mouths full that Ace could understand him perfectly, and in fact wouldn't have known eating like that wasn't the norm if Makino hadn't told him.

"I get you want to be a pirate, after all that Shanks sounds like a cool guy, but why would you want to be like him? You could get plenty of adventures, fame and treasure without taking that damn title.”

Luffy chuckled.

"Silly Ace." The older boy looked at him. It wasn't often that Luffy called him something like that if they weren't arguing. "That's not why I wanna be the Pirate King." Ace blinked. "The Pirate King is the man with the most freedom on the seas." And Luffy grinned, a grin even brighter than the fire that illuminated the clearing.

Ace never brought the topic up again, but he still didn't understand how Luffy could think that. How could being a bastard that had ruined thousands of lives mean being free? Or the title itself wasn't a bad thing, but its current holder was clouding Ace's mind?

Yes, that had to be it. No matter how much Luffy became a pirate, he would never be like that useless piece of shit had been.

"Freedom."

Fuck!

Ace kicked the unfortunate tree again. And again, and then continued to kick it, destroying it further with each hit.

Why, out of all the possible answers, had that man said that particular word? And why had his stupid mind compared the man to Luffy? Sure, for a pirate, Marco was a decent enough guy, if one ignored how infuriatingly smug the bastard was, but the man was still a very infamous, very dangerous person under the orders of-

Ace paused.

Marco was under Whitebeard's orders. Whitebeard, one of the few men who, like gramps, had been able to fight that man on equal terms. His rival.

Ace had heard some times that Whitebeard hadn't been able to defeat the Pirate King, but what people didn't say was that, apparently, neither had he lost against him. Ace had heard stories of a lot of pirates, marines or even armies that had fought that man and lost. With luck, a few men had survived to tell the tale. The Whitebeard Pirates, however, hadn't been one of those crews.

And it was that thought that finally made Ace think that perhaps, and just perhaps, Marco could be one of the few pirates who fell out of the category of scumbags where Ace had placed almost all the pirates he had fought during his three years as a marine. After all, anybody who was part of a crew who opposed that man was at least worth consideration, wasn’t he?

That didn’t mean Ace would immediately like the man, of course not, he couldn’t forget that the old geezer had fought the Pirate King in countless occasions and Ace still couldn’t stand him most of the time, but he would at least try to tune the hostilities down a little.

With some luck, that would make more bearable his time in this island until he could leave.

 

* * *

 

 

Marco sat down on one of the multiple rocks surrounding the lake, sighing. He was barely sweating, though he had spent the last hour working out. Or, more precisely, trying to work out. He couldn’t destroy much of the scenery, as a living forest was far more useful than a devastated one when it came to finding food, and the animals, though some of them strong enough to provide a fun fight, weren’t that many either, as this island was rather small, and he preferred to have fresh meat available. Seeing how much his companion ate, that meant no killing animals for fun, they were at enough risk of extinction with that walking black hole around as things were.

Speaking of who, the boy was now coming back to camp, lunch in tow, and sat in front of their improvised and very much rudimentary ‘kitchen’ to cook it. The kid could just use his powers, of course, but then the meat closer to the skin would get completely burned, as the young marine had complained the first night once he started eating dinner.

Looking at the boy as he lit up the fire, an idea crossed Marco’s mind and he grinned.

“Hey, Ace.”

The kid tensed, and Marco held the urge to scoff. Just because the stubborn brat insisted on playing annoyed and call him names didn’t mean Marco had to follow his game.

He was curious, though, when the younger man visibly relaxed and answered, attention still on their now slowly roasting lunch.

“Yeah?”

“Want to fight?”

The other turned his head around so fast that Marco felt a sympathetic throb on his own neck.

“What?!”

“Not an all out fight. Just some work out.” He explained.

Ace’s confusion was replaced by a wide, fierce grin.

“Sure!” The boy made to stand up, but Marco raised a hand.

“Later. You don’t want that to get wasted, do you?” He pointed to the food and, just like that, Ace was back to his attentive staring, though he looked visibly more relaxed than before.

Marco himself felt better as well. That would help him pass the time.

 

* * *

 

 

Marco looked, amused, at the now snoring marine, back flat on the ground and arms stretched at his sides.

Most people would have reacted with surprise, anger or some crazy theory about a sudden death, but he had been exposed before to the sudden sleep attacks that seemed to be a common trait for most people with a D in their name.

Back in his days, Roger used to fall asleep at the most absurd of times, like when he was standing on top of a pole, supposedly to be able to talk to his captain face to face though the two men were at the verge of drawing weapons, and suddenly dropped down, falling on his face and continuing to snore as if he hadn’t just survived something that would have killed a normal man. Rayleigh had dragged the still not Pirate King off and apologized, saying their crews could beat the shit out of each other once the idiot woke up.

And then there was Garp. Marco didn’t even want to think of his encounters with that nutjob.

Looking at the young man’s almost peaceful expression, no trace of a frown on his face for the first time, Marco considered the possibility to let him sleep. Them he remembered they had agreed to fight, stood up, picked one of the biggest empty bowls, filled it with water from the lake and dumped said water on the marine’s sleeping face.

He was too bored to be charitable.

The water did a magnificent job. Right after sputtering for as long as it took him to understand what was going on, Ace looked up at him, murder shining it his eyes, and launched himself at the smirking pirate.

 

* * *

 

 

Ace dropped on his back panting heavily, sweat running down his body and his side hurting considerably. The pirate knew how to kick, Ace felt almost as if he had received one of his grandfather's dreadful Fists of Love.

"You're too rash."

Ace turned his head to the side to look at the blond man sitting a couple of feet away from him. The bastard hadn't even broken a sweat.

"What?"

"You don't think when fighting, you just throw all your strength behind your attacks and hope it'll work."

"That's not true, I think." Ace argued, too tired to yell his words.

"Says the idiot who attacked me as soon as he woke up the first day."

"Hey!"

"You wouldn't be half as tired if you had thought about your attacks. Or paid attention to your haki. Your reactions are too slow."

"What did you expect? I'm new at this!" He snapped, offended.

"Wasn't anybody training you?" Marco asked, looking genuinely curious, and Ace couldn't see any mockery in his face either.

The two weeks he had spent living through hell came to his mind.

"You could say I got a crash course."

Marco gave him another curious look but didn’t comment on it. Instead, the man’s next words thoroughly confused Ace.

“I could help you, if you want.”

Ace blinked, stared at the man, and repeated the sentence in his head to make sure he had heard it correctly. Marco had on a serious expression.

“I’m a marine, remember?”

“And?”

“You’re offering to train me.”

The pirate shrugged.

“I’m bored, and there’s only so much fun I can get out of watching you burn your attempts at making a raft.” The man said, smirking.

“OI!” Yelled Ace, annoyed at the reminder of his less than stellar progress with that plan.

 

* * *

 

Vice admiral Monkey D. Garp buried his face in his hands, shoulders trembling and rebellious tears coming up to his eyes.

_“I regret to inform you that Portgas D. Ace has disappeared in combat.”_

He had beat that brat Onigumo up, convinced that it was some sort of sick joke that bastard, or perhaps someone else, was playing on him, and Sengoku had had to restrain him before he killed the other vice admiral.

 _“Take the week off.”_ Had been his old friend’s words. Garp barely heard him.

He hadn’t left the Headquarters, instead shutting himself up in his office.

_“Portgas D. Ace has disappeared in combat.”_

Everybody had insisted that Ace should stay at Headquarters and train after his haki appeared a month ago, even Ace had wanted to stay. Garp hadn’t wanted to hear a word of it, beating the kid around for the next two weeks as he explained the basics of haki before tossing him back on a ship and sending him off.

If it hadn’t been for his stubbornness, Ace wouldn’t have been on that ship to begin with, he would have been driving everyone nuts here at Headquarters.

_“Portgas D. Ace has disappeared.”_

He had sent him there.

Garp crumbled down on his desk, tears running freely down his cheeks as he sobbed.

He had killed his grandson.


	6. Chapter 6

The fire crackled merrily, illuminating the dark night of the island, helped only by the moon and the stars on the sky and the reflections of those on the water of the lake. For the first time since they arrived here, Ace and Marco sat together in front of the fire, both of them eating dinner. It had been Marco who had sat down next to the young marine, and for once the boy hadn’t growled at him nor had he moved away.

They were eating in silence, the sound of Ace ripping the meat off the bone and loudly munching on it dominating over all other things that could be heard. The boy had some of the worst manners Marco had ever seen, and his stomach could have passed easily for a bottomless pit, another proof that he was a D.

Ace choked, started coughing and accepted the bowl of water Marco passed him, downing it, and his coughing fit calmed considerably.

Marco had to admit he was surprised and intrigued by the brat. He knew, or at least had thought he knew, that people with the D in their names were stubborn, to an unreasonable extent more often than not, and had been sure it would be hard to get him to open up. His first attempt at a conversation with him sure had pointed to that. But now here they were, not even a whole day afterwards, sitting together and eating after a whole afternoon of training without any real attempt to kill each other having taken place.

The pirate had to wonder if the marine was as stubborn as he first had thought, or if he was missing something in all this.

Remembering that his first approach to the topic hadn’t gone too well, Marco decided to try a different, hopefully more harmless, question.

“Why are you only a commodore?”

Ace stopped eating, looked at him and swallowed the food in his mouth before answering.

“What do you mean ‘only a commodore’?”

“You’re strong, and having haki now, you should be on your way to becoming a vice admiral, so why are you still a commodore?”

Marco had half expected Ace to at least be offended by his question, but instead the boy chuckled. It wasn’t a completely amused chuckle, Marco would have to be deaf to mistake it for one, but it was a better response than the one he had been prepared for.

“Apparently, I’m an insubordinate, dangerous brat. Akainu’s words. According to Sengoku, I’m a danger to property and too violent, just like my grandfather.” Ace took another enormous bite off his dinner.

“Your grandfather?”

Ace swallowed.

“Yeah. I told you he’s a marine, right? He’s fucking strong, and scary. And he’s got this stupid habit to burst through walls instead of using doors, and he beats the shit out of people as training.” Ace explained and, though he shivered at the last part, he sounded somewhat fond of the man.

Marco had a sinking feeling in his stomach.

“Who’s your grandfather?”

“He’s a vice admiral. You probably know him, being a Whitebeard Pirate and all that. His name’s Garp.”

Marco stared. Ace continued to eat.

“You’re _Garp’s_ grandson.” Ace nodded. “How the hell are you still alive?”

Ace burst out laughing and spilled bits of meat all over the ground.

“I’m tough.” He said. Marco didn’t doubt it.

 

* * *

 

 

Ace glared at the chuckling pirate and threw the smoldering, now useless trunk of a tree into the water. He might have messed it up, but that was no reason to risk burning the whole forest. That was a conclusion he had reached after his first few failed attempts.

“Shut up.” He growled, and Marco just laughed harder.

“That’s the sixth one in an hour.” The man commented, still grinning, and Ace regretted not having thrown the damn burned trunk at his head instead.

Deciding he wouldn’t get anything done right now, he launched himself at the damn pirate, fist aimed at the man’s stomach. Marco dodged, and Ace was forced to throw himself backwards to prevent a sandaled foot from connecting with his chin.

He rolled on the ground and stood up again not too far from Marco, glaring at the still relaxed-looking man, who looked right back at him with half-lidded eyes.

Marco smirked, his hands hanging limp at his sides and his body still in a relaxed position when Ace charged back at him, arms and legs covered in fire.

 

* * *

 

 

“W-What are you doing?!” Ace demanded, refusing to admit he had stammered, when he saw Marco taking off his pants, the shirt, sash, belt and sandals already resting next to him.

“I don’t know about you, but I need a bath.” The man said, not looking up at him as he undressed completely.

“You’re a devil fruit user, remember?” Ace said, not turning away from him. His cheeks might be slightly red at the sight, but he had to admit Marco wasn’t half bad looking. For a pirate. He had been with hotter guys. Of course he had.

“And? That stream is shallow,” the blond said, pointing to one of the two streams taking water from the lake. It was slow, too, “it’ll be fine as long as I don’t get completely underwater. You should consider taking a bath, too.”

Ace narrowed his eyes at the man’s words.

“Are you insinuating something?”

“Me? No, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that uniform of yours turned into a second skin.”

Though he glared at the man, Ace had to admit his marine uniform, that had always been too tight for his liking, was sticking in a very uncomfortable way to his body. And he might need a bath, too.

“And then what? You’ll put on your dirty clothes again?” Ace asked, more out of spite at the pirate’s insinuation than anything else.

Marco gave him a look that made it clear he wanted to ask if Ace was stupid and stood up, taking his clothes with him and leaving the sandals and belt there.

“I’m going to wash them, of course.”

Wait, did that mean the man was going to stay naked until they dried?

 

* * *

 

 

Taking a bath had been a great idea, Marco thought an hour later. Aside from the obvious benefit of being clean and feeling more comfortable, Ace had followed his example and now, with their clothes hanging on a rope tied to two trees next to a fire to dry, both men were naked.

Ace was slightly embarrassed about the situation, even if the stubborn brat refused to show it and acted as if nothing bothered him. Not that Marco complained.

Any decent person would have not only covered themselves, but averted their eyes from the other person. Luckily, being a decent person wasn’t part of a pirate’s profile, and so he not only didn’t have to cover himself, but he had used the opportunity to take long looks at the marine’s body. And what a body. That uniform really didn’t do him any justice. Though Marco guessed there were things the marines would never allow their uniforms to show or hint at.

And Marco knew that, embarrassed or not, the younger man had also checked him out. Of course, Ace had been much more discreet about it than Marco, sneaking looks at him when he thought the pirate wasn’t looking. But Marco had noticed, and he had also seen the other wasn’t indifferent to what he saw.

That was an interesting development. Weren’t the marines supposed to have higher morals and be above that sort of behavior?

Still, Marco wouldn’t comment on it. Now that they had progressed to a point where they could talk without too many murder attempts in the way, he wouldn’t ruin it by proposing they fuck.

He would save that for later.

 

* * *

 

 

Thatch sighed, looking out at sea without really paying attention to the marvelous sight that usually enamored him.

They had been searching for two days already, and they had only found two crewmembers. Both dead. Vista’s search party had found one of them, and Namur’s the other. Neither of them was Marco, and Thatch felt sick that a part of him was grateful for that. They were his brothers, too, and they had died.

Thatch, meanwhile, was part of Pops’ search party. He had wanted to lead one of the other three ships, but Pops had stated he was too upset by the circumstances to be left in charge of one. Instead he had led the group searching the island they had docked at yesterday afternoon. There had been no results, and neither had they found anyone, nor any traces of someone, in the ocean so far.

Thatch had destroyed a wall right after they came back from the island empty-handed. He would have destroyed the whole room, probably the next one that had been separated from it by the wall as well, if Jozu hadn’t hold him back, whole body turned into diamond to make sure he couldn’t get away.

So maybe Pops was right and Thatch was too upset to lead a search party.

He would be like this until they got news from the damned blue chicken. And it’d better be good news or he would kill someone.

 

* * *

 

 

Marco stood up from his makeshift bed, took the sail acting as blanket and draped it over his body. Then he walked to the rope from where the clothes were still hanging. They had bathed too late, and their clothes hadn’t dried by the time they were done with dinner. Both men had been somewhat tired and, after Ace lighted Marco’s fires, they had gone to sleep. But Marco, despite having something to cover himself with, had woken up feeling cold.

Judging by what he could see in the sky, there were still some three hours left before dawn.

It was impressive how missing a thin layer of fabric such as his clothes did to one’s perception of cold in a spring night like this, something that wasn’t helped by how he wasn’t used to having to worry about temperature so much. Marco’s powers might not make him immune to temperature changes like Ace’s did, but they gave considerable protection and, had he had them, Marco could have easily slept happily sprawled on the ground naked just as Ace was doing.

He glared down at the kairoseki handcuffs, secured the sail around himself and raised his arms to untie one of the ends of the rope. He was careful so Ace’s clothes wouldn’t fall as he took his. He dressed, draped the sail around himself again, as he was still cold and needed to get some warmth back, and headed back to his spot.

Marco stopped by Ace’s side, smiling with amusement at the position the marine was sleeping in, lying on his back with arms and legs sprawled open and giving a very good view of everything he had to offer. Very nice offerings, in Marco’s opinion.

Now, if he wasn’t sure the brat would try to kill him for it, Marco could drop to his knees, run his hands over those nicely defined abs, lean over to kiss them, then trail down to give some attention to the nice, now soft cock…

Shaking his head, Marco convinced himself that wasn’t the best line of thought to follow. In his haste to avert his eyes from Ace’s length, they fell instead on the boy’s left arm. On the tattoo on his upper left arm, to be more precise. It had been there from the beginning, the marine uniform not covering it as it didn’t have sleeves, and that was probably why Marco hadn’t paid attention to it. But now that he looked at the design, it was strange. Ace’s name, that part was easy enough, but the crossed out S was curious. Many people would think it was a misspelling, but Marco very much doubted a tattoo artist would’ve made such a mistake, and much less live to draw the rest of the design, seeing Ace’s temper. Others might say it was some silly statement about how the name was and wasn’t pronounced, but Marco doubted that as well, thinking it a too stupid reason, more now that he knew Ace and could say that, though certainly stubborn and too hotheaded, he was by no means stupid.

No, there was some story behind that design, and Marco took note to ask that question at some point. Probably when Ace was in a very good mood, as the brat had proven to react badly to certain comments, and it had to be an important story to deserve a permanent reminder on Ace’s skin.


	7. Chapter 7

This time, Ace threw the burned log in his hands at Marco’s head when the man burst out laughing at his latest failed attemopt to build his raft. Marco, the bastard, caught it in one hand, not bothering to stop laughing, and threw it back at Ace’s head, who ducked out of the way. The now useless piece of wood fell innocently into the lake.

Ace glared down at the place where his raft should have been, but instead there were not even two pieces of wood tied together. The insignificant progress he had managed these past few days had been burned out earlier this morning when, while fighting Marco, one of the attacks the man had dodged had hit his raft head on.

“Shouldn’t you help me instead of laughing?” He snapped, crossing his arms.

Marco’s laughter subsided, and the man looked at him, obviously confused.

“Why should I? I told you I’m waiting for my crew.”

Ace couldn’t hold back a snort. Yes, that was what the man had said the first day, but he was being too relaxed even if he had that idea.

“You sure of that? This is, what, the fifth day we’ve been stuck here? And there’s been no signal of your crew.”

“And?” The man asked, shrugging. “This area has a lot of islands, you know, and this one isn’t too close to where we fought.”

“So? Aren’t you too sure they’ll find you? What if they don’t?”

For the first time since they had decided to cooperate, Marco’s face hardened, and all traces of his usually relaxed attitude disappeared from his body.

“They will.”

Once again, Ace was taken aback by how sure Marco was that his crew was looking for him. It seemed impossible, pirates weren’t all that different from marines when it came to their crewmembers, in fact in most cases they cared even less if someone disappeared. Marco was an important member of the crew, sure, but the marines wouldn’t have looked even if it was Onigumo who had fallen into the ocean. Ace rather hoped that had happened, by the way. Hell, they probably wouldn’t look even if _his grandfather_ was the one to disappear. There might even be a party if that was the case.

But to have the certainty that his crew was looking for him… that was something Ace could only imagine a captain like his brother doing if one of his men went missing. Ace would, too, at least if someone he cared about disappeared.

“The marines aren’t looking for you.” Marco said. It wasn’t a question, it was a statement, as if he had just reached that conclusion.

“No.” Ace answered, shaking his head. “They don’t really search for missing men. If someone comes back, that’s great, but they don’t invest resources when most likely the people they’re looking for are dead.”

“What about your grandfather?”

Ace had to ponder that question. Really, w _hat_ would the old man do? Aside from beating the crap out of the unfortunate soul who had to tell him he was missing, of course. He finally opted for shrugging.

“I have no idea, to be honest.” Deciding that was a topic he really didn’t want to think about, because he shivered at what could be Garp’s reaction when he saw him again and how many bones the man would crush if he decided to hug Ace, he went for a change of topic before Marco could say anything else. “Can I ask you something?”

Marco nodded and Ace moved to sit on one of the massive roots of the tree the man was leaning against.

“Is it true that you guys are like a family?”

He had heard many stories about the crew. The most common ones were about how overprotective the Whitebeard Pirates were of their own, and of what had happened to those who had attacked either their crew, allies or territories. But also, far less commonly than the other stories, Ace had heard of how the Whitebeard Pirates acted like a family, not just an overprotective crew, with the captain as the father and the whole crew as his sons. Even his allies, some said. Ace had usually heard of these stories from people who mocked the crew for it, but he didn’t do it, because he understood what it was to become family with people you had no blood ties to. It was the concept of such a big family, though, what puzzled Ace.

A fond smile appeared on Marco’s lips, and any trace of his previous seriousness disappeared.

“Yeah, we are.” He said and then, as if it was an afterthought, his eyes hardened again and he gave a pointed look to Ace.

It seemed the mocking Ace had heard from marines and sometimes a pirate was no secret to Marco.

He raised his hands in a pacifying gesture.

“Hey, that’s fine. I was just curious. I got brothers that aren’t related to me, too.”

That made Marco relax again, and the blond looked at him with curiosity.

“You do?”

“Yeah. Luffy and… Sabo.” He lowered his eyes at this, something that happened often whenever he thought of his blond brother. It had been ten years already, and he had accepted it long ago, but that didn’t mean the fist that clenched around his heart every time he thought about him had disappeared, even if it had lessened the pressure from what it had once been.

Ace looked up and saw Marco’s eyes were on him, a calm though serious expression on the man’s face.

“Luffy? I remember reading that name in the newspaper the day we fought.” Marco said, and Ace, seeing the change of topic by what it was, smiled gratefully. “But that one was a pirate.”

Ace grinned, remembering when he had seen the wanted poster and then read the article about his little brother. He had received many annoyed and curious looks at the ship’s mess hall when he had laughed after seeing it, and had barely held back from telling someone Luffy was his brother. He didn’t want to attract too much attention to him so soon, after all. Then he had imagined gramps’ reaction and had laughed again.

“That’s him.” He said, and his grin grew when Marco raised an eyebrow. “Just became a pirate and he’s already beaten all the strong guys from East Blue. Not a bad start, right?”

“No.” Marco agreed, an amused smile playing on his lips. “You’re proud of him.” He observed.

“Of course!” Ace exclaimed. “He’s gonna be the Pirate King one day.” Ace himself might not like the previous holder of the title, but that was Luffy’s dream and he supported him. Luffy would make a great king of the pirates, after all.

Marco’s eyes widened slightly in surprise at that and Ace laughed. That was a very common reaction when people heard Luffy’s dream, after all. But, if the man made a mocking comment about it, as was also a very common reaction, Ace would beat him up, ridiculously strong pirate or not. But Marco didn’t laugh, he just smiled again, and Ace thought he saw a flicker of interest in his eyes. He just said:

“That’s a good dream.”

 

* * *

 

 

“What the fuck is this?!” Thatch snapped, throwing the newspaper he had been reading across the table before storming out of the room.

Jozu took the newspaper up, and it didn’t take long to know what had bothered his brother so much. There, taking up half of the cover page, was the picture from Marco’s wanted poster and, below it, written in huge, bold letters, were the words ‘Dead or alive?’ He wanted to rip the offending piece of paper right there, but held back and forced himself to read the text. Apparently, some of the marines had seen Marco fall into the ocean, and they had also spoken about those damn kairoseki handcuffs. Now the marines were waiting confirmation of Marco’s death. If there was no information about him in a month they would assume the first division commander had died that day.

As if Marco would die so easily.

Jozu glared at the newspaper and was about to rip it when his eyes landed on the article below the one about Marco. It spoke about the disappeared marines. Now that was strange. There weren’t usually articles about missing marines unless it had been a really big event, but to say it in the first page?

Curiosity taking over, Jozu decided to see what was the reason for the article. Had that damned vice admiral who handcuffed Marco gone missing, too?

He found his answer soon, in the text under a picture that was considerably bigger than the others. It was of a grinning young man, with dark hair and freckles on his face. Commodore Portgas D. Ace, the grandson of vice admiral Monkey D. Garp, who, according to the text, was also a devil fruit user.

Hadn’t the guys from the first division mentioned a monster brat with a devil fruit power?

 

* * *

 

 

Ace rolled out of the way, avoiding the kick Marco had thrown at him, and aimed one of his own at the leg the man was supporting himself on. Marco jumped out of the way and Ace took the opportunity to right himself up again. Turning his left arm into fire, Ace threw a column of it at the man and, when he avoided it, rushed at him, aiming his haki imbued right fist at Marco’s chest.

Marco stopped his fist with his left hand, pulled the captured arm closer and let it go just as he kicked Ace on the stomach, the impact sending him flying. Ace landed on his back on top of the remnants of one of the night’s fires and, before he could move, Marco was on top of him, straddling his stomach and smirking down at him, kairoseki handcuff firmly pressed to the boy’s chest.

“I think you lose.”

“The hell.” Growled Ace, throwing another punch at Marco, who rolled to the side so it would only hit his shoulder instead of the chest where it had been aimed at, and Ace followed him, rolling on top of the pirate to punch him again. He, too, had to throw himself to the side to avoid a punch, and Marco rolled on top once more.

Ace pressed himself a mere moment to the ground before launching him up again, faster than before, fists aimed at both of Marco’s shoulders. They impacted, and the strength threw Marco backwards. Ace grinned right before he was dragged after Marco by their legs that had tangled after the scuffle on the ground, and he landed on top of the man, his lips pressing over Marco’s.


	8. Chapter 8

Marco cursed, looked at the empty patch of grass before him and cursed again.

And that accident had seemed to go so well.

Ace had practically melted into the kiss, returning it with as much force as Marco had kissed him with once he had realized what was happening. And then the marine had panicked. Well, not exactly _panicked_ , Marco wasn’t sure there was much out there that would make the stubborn brat actually panic, but he had become nervous, had pushed away from Marco and had left the clearing in a hurry. Not fled, the kid would never admit to that, of course.

Seriously, _what had that been?_ Ace hadn’t looked scared or anything, at least Marco thought he hadn’t by the brief look at the freckled face he had got as Ace left. He seriously hoped it had been plain nervousness or confusion at the sudden occurrence, and not the marine morals Marco had thought Ace didn’t have kicking in. Hell, even Ace being a virgin would be preferable to that.

_He doesn’t kiss like a virgin._

Marco groaned and dropped onto the ground on his back. It had been so promising…

 

* * *

 

 

_What the fuck was that?_

Ace marched through the forest, stomping on the grass, twigs and anything unfortunate enough to be in his path.

He knew what that had been, of course. They had been fighting and their lips happened to accidentally touch while they did. Ace had never thought those things happened in real life, but he could deal with it, after all accidents were no one’s fault. What he had more trouble with was what had happened afterwards. How Marco had reacted. How _Ace_ had reacted.

Because, what could have possessed the pirate to kiss him? And then why had Ace responded? Alright, so he could understand why Marco had kissed him, after all he had been told enough times how hot he was, and maybe he could understand his own response as Marco, something Ace had accepted not too long ago, wasn’t bad looking either.

That still didn’t justify kissing a pirate. So, Ace didn’t follow most of the marines’ moral codes, alright, but an enemy, even if they had a temporary truce, was still an enemy, and he had his pride. Besides, gramps would kill him if he ever happened to discover what had just happened.

…-Ace really needed to find a better reason to justify that stupid reaction of his. Not the kiss, that one was clear enough, but the way he had left. He was an adult, he should have stopped it like the mature man he was supposed to be and not flee like a virgin teenager. And Ace _did not flee_.

Shaking his head, Ace decided to simply forget about the whole thing. Marco was probably as confused as he himself was, and there would be no mention of this incident.

Ace decided to go catch dinner and act as if nothing had happened.

 

* * *

 

 

The coffee had long since cooled, forgotten as it was on the round table of the small place where he had decided to stop for a snack he no longer felt like ordering.

The man’s hands clenched the newspaper with such force that it was a miracle the flimsy paper hadn’t already ripped.

The news in the lower part of the cover page were mocking him.

_‘Disappeared marines’_

_‘Portgas D. Ace’_

As he read the lines one more time, the paper trembled by the force with which his hands were shaking as they held onto it. That was a _lie_. Just look at Ace, how he was grinning in that picture, how strong he looked… It was impossible he would die so easily. _There was no way_.

The man wanted to punch himself, more than he remembered ever having wanted to do it. So Ace hadn’t wanted to be a pirate, fine, he had always known that. But he should have sought him out all the same and convinced him that there were other ways, _anything but becoming a marine_ , to have adventures and see the world. So why hadn’t he?

He brought his hands, still holding the newspaper, up to his face, and buried his head into the paper, against Ace’s grinning picture.

This was a lie.

This was a nightmare.

This was _impossible_.

 

* * *

 

Marco the Phoenix, despite having a formidable temper, was a generally calm and level-headed man. That was no secret amongst the Whitebeard Pirates and their allies. There were relatively few things, at least in comparison to many other crewmembers, that would really annoy him.

Now, however, Marco could say he _was_ annoyed.

It had been a day since the accidental kiss. Things hadn’t been awkward as he had feared at some point when Ace still hadn’t shown up an hour later, they hadn’t got into any arguments when he had and Ace hadn’t thrown any accusations his way. That should be good. That _would_ be good if it wasn’t because of the fact that Ace acted as if nothing had happened.

Or he almost did, at any rate.

The marine hadn’t looked much his way, that Marco had noticed, but everything he had done so far was part of what they now considered routine for their stay in the island. The boy had brought dinner, they had cooked and ate it while making normal yet not very personal conversation, Ace asking about places in the New World and Marco telling him what he remembered about them, then they had gone to sleep, had woken up the next morning and had eaten breakfast, Ace had failed another attempt at a raft, after cursing and grumbling for a while had gone to catch some more food, and they had just finished lunch and the marine now was boiling a new batch of water.

The only deviation from normal was that there had been no mention of training.

Marco wanted to punch something, preferably the idiot that was now carefully removing bowls of water from on top of his half naked body.

He would do just that.

The pirate waited patiently, or as patiently as he was capable of being in his current state, for Ace to put all the water away next to the fire they used to cook their meals and then walk away from it.

“Ace!” He called, and that was all the warning he gave the younger man.

Ace let out a startled exclamation when Marco charged at him, but couldn’t move out of the way in time to dodge the kick aimed at his stomach. This wasn’t a training session, Marco wasn’t going to cut the brat any slack. No, he had a point to get across and, while doing so, he was also going to kick Ace’s ass.

The marine growled, clearly annoyed, and he got in a punch to Marco’s shoulder before finding himself with a kairoseki cuff pressed to the head.

The effect was as expected and Ace faltered, the weakening properties of the stone momentarily distracting him, and the blond took the chance to push him to the ground, on his back and with Marco straddling his hips as he held him down. The pirate slid his cuffed hand down until he was pressing the stone to Ace’s chest instead of his head.

“What the hell are you doing?” the brat snarled at him, clearly furious and somewhat disconcerted by the sudden turn of events.

“I don’t want to fight, if that’s what you’re asking,” he answered, and moved his free hand until it was resting on Ace’s side, against the warm and uncovered skin.

Ace looked more confused now, and the anger shining in his eyes wavered somewhat. Before the dark haired young man could speak again, however, Marco moved and ground his hips against Ace’s. The marine’s eyes widened at the feeling of _what_ exactly had Marco in such a bad mood, and realization tentatively dawned on his face. Marco hoped he wouldn’t decide to be stubborn now, because Ace was no idiot and he was clearly capable of understanding what the man was talking about.

“I don’t like to be ignored, Ace,” he said, and again, before Ace had time to muster an answer, he leaned down to whisper into the brat’s ear, “say you don’t want it, tell me you really don’t and I’ll back off and won’t mention it again.”

He felt Ace tense under him, but Marco didn’t think, at least he was reasonably sure it wouldn’t happen, that the marine really would tell him no. He had very present in his mind Ace’s reactions, both when they bathed and before he panicked during the kiss.

Sure enough, Ace didn’t immediately growl at him to move away, and Marco rose just enough to see the other’s face.

Ace had a strange expression on. Not really confused, but it was obvious he was trying to understand something.

“But… why would you want to do that?” Ace sounded genuinely puzzled and Marco, realizing they were in for some talking before the boy gave him an answer, moved so that, while still straddling Ace’s hips with his legs, he was now holding himself up with his hands firmly on the ground. Taking a leap of faith of sorts, he removed the kairoseki cuff from its position directly on Ace’s skin, and felt encouraged when the brat didn’t try to barbecue him immediately.

“You really don’t know?” He asked and, seeing in Ace’s face that he really didn’t, answered, “you are hot, that’s undeniable and you can’t convince me you aren’t aware of it,” Ace smirked smugly at him, confirming that he did know that much at least, “but, aside from that, I do like you.”

Much to Marco’s surprise, a faint blush spread over Ace’s cheeks. He hadn’t really thought of him as the blushing sort, and he added that small piece of information to the puzzle in his head that was Portgas D. Ace. He wondered how that particular piece of information would translate into sex.

“Aren’t you worried that I’m a marine?”

Again with that. Ace had voiced concerns like that before, though they didn’t fit any aspect of the boy’s personality that Marco had observed so far. Suddenly, they made sense.

“Ace, are you r _eally_ worried about that or it’s just something you know you should be worried about?” The way Ace’s blush grew told Marco everything he needed to know. The pirate smiled, amused at that particular show of Ace’s stubborn nature, and wisely decided that commenting on how cute it was would be counter-productive to his current objective. “I don’t care about that, and I don’t think you should, either.”

“Really?” Ace asked, surprising Marco by the lack of an argument. That was a nice surprise, because it meant Ace didn’t put nearly as much value in the notion as he probably thought he should.

“Of course not. This doesn’t have to mean anything more than you want it to. And, besides,” he grinned, “there’s no reason why the marines should know if you don’t tell them.”

When Ace grinned back, Marco knew he had him. The boy leaned up and the pirate didn’t move, letting him take the first step now.

“Well, in that case, we should fuck.”

This time, when Ace kissed him, it was completely intentional, and Marco happily complied, turning his head so he could dive his tongue into Ace’s partially open mouth.


	9. Chapter 9

Ace growled in the kiss and placed his hands on Marco’s shoulders, pushing, but this time not breaking apart as he rolled on the ground until he was the one on top.

It seemed Marco wouldn’t have it this way, because he wrapped the fingers of one hand into Ace’s hair and pulled to get their mouths to part. Ace might have moaned at the feeling.

“No way in hell, brat,” were the man’s words, and then Ace found himself once more with his back against the hard stones on the ground.

“What makes you think I’m letting you top?” Ace growled again, this time words instead of an inarticulate sound into Marco’s mouth.

The pirate smirked down at him.

“You can try to stop me, but I won’t hold back,” the man said smugly, as they both were aware that, in a serious fight, Ace would get his ass handed over to him and now, afterwards, fucked. But Ace smirked too.

“I could burn your dick.” The hand on his hair tightened and Ace gasped. _Fuck_ , the man hadn’t even tried and he had already found something he liked.

“If you try,” Marco began, leaning down until his lips were brushing over Ace’s ear, “I will kill you.”

The appropriate response to having one of the world’s most dangerous pirates threatening to kill you wasn’t to have your cock throb, but that was exactly how Ace’s body reacted. The low voice in which Marco had spoken really didn’t help matters.

“You’re such an evil bastard,” he breathed out, pulling the man down for a heated kiss the pirate didn’t seem to complain about if the tongue that immediately plunged into his mouth was anything to go by.

He felt Marco’s free hand slid down his annoyingly still clothed chest and stomach, barely brushing over the fabric, and then the man suddenly grabbed his trapped erection. Ace moaned and Marco pulled back and smirked again at him. That smirk should be illegal. It probably was and was part of why the man’s bounty was so ridiculously high.

“You don’t seem to mind.” Fingers moved, rubbing over his trapped length and Ace thrust upwards.

“Why the fuck are we still dressed?”

It was like opening a dam; suddenly they were pulling at each other’s clothes and trying to get rid of them as fast as possible. Marco’s open shirt went fist, and not even the annoying cuffs getting stuck on it prevented that for long. Ace’s marine vest was next, but the damn too thin thing was proving to be a difficult opponent. Ace wondered, annoyed, if the damn thing could somehow feel its owner was trying to fuck, more like be fucked by, a pirate and refused to cooperate.

Marco won the battle with the efficient technique of ripping the vest off Ace’s torso.

“OI! I don’t have more clothes!” the dark haired man yelled. Marco raised an eyebrow at him.

“You don’t feel the cold, Ace,” he said, and threw the now useless piece of fabric to the side. Ace had to concede the point.

He wasn’t sure how they did it, but they managed to get rid of their shoes and pants while kissing, rolling on the ground and groping each other as best as the task allowed. Neither of them wore underwear, and they didn’t care about it at all.

Soon, Ace found himself once again trapped between Marco’s body and the ground, the man’s hard length pressed against his thigh.

“We don’t have lube,” Ace commented, and briefly wondered why he didn’t carry it in a pocket on a daily basis. Probably because fucking in a battlefield wasn’t exactly sanctioned —though he doubted anybody had forbidden it— and he didn’t find any of the men he shared a ship with particularly attractive. He should’ve carried it all the same.

“We’ll have to improvise, then,” Marco said, and one of his hands wrapped around Ace’s dick.

“What?” he asked and, when Marco just smiled and began to pump said hand, Ace suddenly understood what he intended to do. _And he did not blush_. “You can’t be serious,” he said, dismayed and perhaps a little bit mortified.

“We could use saliva, if you’d prefer, it’s your ass after all, but I think this would work better.”

And Ace was willing to admit he was a little mortified because no guy wouldn’t be at the thought of being prepared with his own cum.

But damn, that hand was good. Marco knew exactly where to rub, where to add pressure and how to change speed to drive him crazy. Ace was soon writhing under him, moaning and gasping, and the rapt expression on the blond man’s face as he watched every one of his reactions didn’t exactly help either. And had he just licked his lips? _Fuck_.

Ace came after an embarrassingly short amount of time, and he would always blame the lack of sex these past few months for it. Marco’s hands brushed his oversensitive skin, making him shudder, and then Marco’s lips were kissing the edge of his mouth, and the man’s tongue came out to trace his lips.

“Ace… spread your legs.”

He did, still panting and enjoying the feeling, and he heard Marco move. When two sticky and warm fingers —because he was too relaxed to tense up at all— entered him he managed to gather his wits enough to feel his cheeks warm at the realization of what exactly was now inside of him. He raised his head to look down his body and, sure enough, Marco —who was now kneeling between his parted legs— had a good amount of semen cupped in the hand that wasn’t busy scissoring inside of him and-

“Fuck!” He half yelled and half moaned when that spot inside of him was hit and Marco smiled at him, then he touched it again and, next thing he knew, Ace had three fingers inside his ass.

The man pulled the fingers out and leaned over him, lips again trailing his face and this time heading for his ear.

“You’re so hot…”

And then the tip of Marco’s cock —was he really-?— pressed against his entrance and pushed in, entering too smoothly after so long to not have been coated, and this time Ace might have blushed at the implications of that action.

Marco groaned into his ear, and the younger man was glad when he didn’t stop and instead began to move at a slow but sure pace, because he was no scared virgin and wouldn’t have appreciated being treated like one.

Deciding his afterglow quietness had lasted to long, Ace moved his arms to wrap them around Marco’s shoulders and leaned up so that he could latch his lips onto the man’s neck, kissing, sucking and biting in search of any spot that was especially sensitive. Judging by Marco’s grunts and moans, they weren’t few.

He also began to rock his hips in sync with Marco’s and soon was pulled into another passionate kiss, their tongues moving against each other and, almost as if bothered by those appendages being faster, the two men accelerated the movements of their hips, each on his own, and soon the rhythm was lost, replaced by drowned moans, panting breaths and too many hits against that sweet spot to count.

Ace didn’t let Marco wrap a hand around his cock when the man tried to, instead breaking the kiss to smirk up at him and breathe out a hoarse challenge.

“What… you c’n’t- get me oofff… wi-without… a hand… t-there?”

And that was probably the best challenge he had ever thrown, because a determined glint entered Marco’s eyes and then, suddenly, the hits to his prostate increased, as did the speed of the man’s thrusts, and there was a mouth covering his own again, hungrily swallowing all of his moans as Ace, probably for the first time in his life, happily lost a bet they hadn’t really decided on in the first place.

Had he not been so distracted, Ace would probably have been embarrassed at being the first one to climax when he had already come once before, but he was too busy moaning loudly, his head thrown back and mouth free from Marco’s, and unconsciously dragging Marco with him, who buried his head into Ace’s neck as he, too, moaned loudly and filled him.

Marco collapsed on top of him, and it would have been hard to tell if he couldn’t hold himself up or simply didn’t want to if Ace had been paying attention in the first place. The blond soon pulled out of him, rolled onto his back and dragged Ace to rest against his chest. Not that he minded the change in position.

“You were saying?” Marco asked, and Ace didn’t need to see the man’s face to know he was smirking, his voice was proof enough. He punched him.

“Shut up,” he snapped less than half-heartedly, his eyes going up to the darkening sky. “It’s late, we should probably go catch dinner.”

“Yeah,” Marco agreed, but neither of them moved. “Ace?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re sleeping together from now on,” Ace was about to tell him how stupid that statement was after what they had just done when Marco continued, “and I don’t mean sex, I mean _sleeping_.”

“What makes you think I’ll agree?” he asked, more out of obligation to argue than anything else.

“I don’t need you to agree. I’m a pirate, I’m perfectly fine with taking things by force,” Marco said, and Ace was almost sure, despite the deadpan tone of voice, that the man was teasing him.

“Really? And what’d you get out of it? You pirates don’t bother to steal stuff if you don’t get anything out of it.”

Marco chuckled.

“I told you, you’re a walking heater.”

Ace growled, because he didn’t appreciate being called that, and if that was the only reason Marco was going to give then he would push the man and sleep as separated from him as before.

As if sensing his annoyance —which was very likely, as Marco was a haki user— the pirate’s arm tightened around him.

“Besides, this way, if I want another round, I only have to do…” suddenly the world whirled around Ace and, next thing he knew, he found himself lying face down on the ground, his ass held in the air by two hands holding his hips up and a not entirely indifferent cock pressed against the cleft between his ass cheeks. “…this.”

Suddenly Ace realized they wouldn’t be getting dinner any time soon. Not that, for once, he minded too much.


	10. Chapter 10

Ace fell on top of Marco’s chest, sweaty, panting and with the man’s dick, now soft, still buried inside of him. That was the second training session in a day that ended with them rolling on the ground and having sex. He moved to get comfortable and Marco slipped out of him.

Ace slid to the side until he was on the ground but with his head and half of his body resting on Marco’s —the blond was a very comfortable pillow— and one of the man’s arms came around him, the hand going up to his head and tangling into Ace’s messy black hair.

“You know, we should do something aside from fucking.”

Marco chuckled.

"You’re the one who decided to ride me when you managed to get on top of me. Not that I’m complaining.”

"Yeah, well, you’re the one who was already hard.” Ace had been, too, but he decided not to mention that. Marco might, of course, the younger man knew he had noticed, but he was in too much of a good mood to start an argument over who jumped who first this time.

“Alright, let’s talk, then.”

“Talk?” Ace asked.

That was something that had surprised Ace from the beginning, how willing Marco had been to start conversations with him. Looking at him, he would have thought the man wasn’t one to start talking to a stranger, and a marine no less, easily —his bored appearance sure didn’t give that impression— but by now Ace had learned that Marco didn’t like to be bored.

“About what?”

One of Marco's hands trailed up Ace's body and came to rest against the boy's upper left arm. He tensed and, even before the pirate spoke, the marine already knew what his partner would ask.

"What is the meaning of the crossed out S?"

"What makes you think it's not just a misspelling?" Ace grouched, because that was what most people assumed. Either that, or that he wanted to make some stupid statement about how his name was pronounced.

"You would've killed the artist before he got this far." Ace could hear the smirk in Marco's voice, and smirked as well.

"True." Ace debated for a moment if he should say anything else, and he finally decided to do so. "It's a memorial."

There was a long silence in which the boy distracted himself by looking at the contrast of the blond's own tattoo with his skin. When Marco next spoke, he caught Ace completely by surprise.

"Sabo?"

Ace raised his head so fast he almost caused himself whiplash.

"How did you-!" Of course, Ace remembered suddenly, he had mentioned Sabo once before. He was surprised the man remembered. He laid down again on Marco's chest. "Yes, Sabo."

The hand on his tattoo began to move in soft circles.

"What happened?"

Ace didn't know why he did it. Maybe it was because everyone who knew had been there, or had been told right after by the bandits like Makino and gramps; maybe it was because he had never told the story before; or maybe because the only person he had ever talked about Sabo with was Luffy.

Ace began to speak.

He told of how he had met Sabo at the Gray Terminal back when they were both five, of their adventures to gain treasure for Sabo's future pirate ship and to become stronger, of meeting Luffy years later. He spoke about the incident with Polchemy, about the bond as brothers, about Sabo's father, the Bluejam Pirates and Sabo's sacrifice to protect Ace and Luffy. He relived the fire of the Gray Terminal as he related the story, he faltered when he reached the part about Sabo's boat, and he almost didn't mention the letter.

During all this, Marco didn't say a word. He tightened his arms around Ace and listened.

 

* * *

 

 

The air on the Moby Dick, just as in any other of the Whitebeard Pirates' ships, was somber. It was as if they were at a funeral, and, Whitebeard reflected, in a way they were.

"There are only five possible islands left. None of them is inhabited."

The captain nodded to show he had understood his son's words, but his eyes never wandered from the ocean ahead of them.

There were only two men left to find: Marco and William. They had found no survivors so far.

Whitebeard saw a bird fly far on the distance and a wry, bitter smile took over his lips.

Not for the first time, the strongest man in the world cursed the existence of kairoseki handcuffs.

 

* * *

 

 

Marco put the now empty bowl of water back on the ground and walked back to the makeshift mattress the sails had been turned into. For the last couple of nights he and Ace had slept together, which meant Marco no longer was in need of a blanket,  though the fires stayed all the same.

It was really warm to sleep next to Ace, even if they were both naked. That had been a quick conclusion, to decide that staying naked would be easier than to take their clothes of and then put them on again every single time.

Marco wrapped himself around Ace's sprawled form, and his eyes traveled briefly to the boy's exposed tattoo.

Such a strange man, someone willing to help his brothers to become pirates despite how much he himself refused to become one. They had tried to convince him plenty of times, Ace had said.

Despite everything the dark haired youth had said, there were still many mysteries surrounding him, most notably the reason why he had become a marine. Marco could think of very few people who would fit in the role even less than Ace did.

And, as a marine and a pirate, they would soon go back to being enemies. That was a prospect Marco didn't like.

 

* * *

 

Though he would never define himself as stupid —certainly not in the same level as his idiot of a little brother— Ace had no trouble admitting that he didn’t usually stop to think in depth of many things. Now, however, he had been doing just that.

There had been something in his mind for the last couple of days, something he had not paid much thought to at the moment because he had been otherwise occupied. The words Marco had spoken to him the first time they had sex had come back to Ace’s mind the morning after, and they hadn’t left since.

Finally, when they had just finished eating lunch, Ace decided to voice his thoughts.

“Marco, what you said, that it didn’t have to mean anything if I didn’t want to… what did you mean? Do _you_ want this,” Ace gestured to their naked bodies, “to mean something?”

That particular meaning of Marco’s words hadn’t occurred to Ace when he had let them convince him.

Marco smiled at him, and the lack of smugness or any other self-satisfied trait in the expression told Ace the man hadn’t said that with any intention to manipulate Ace in any way. It might have even just slipped his tongue.

 “And if I say I do? What would you do?”

Ace blinked, because even if he had been expecting the answer it was still puzzling to him. What _did_ Marco want, if not only sex and a somewhat unorthodox truce?

 “You do? Why?”

“Because I like you.”

Alright, so Marco had said that before, but Ace had taken the words on the most physical, sexually related meaning. In this situation, however, he couldn’t apply that meaning to them.

“You like _me_?” The boy repeated, more for his own benefit than Marco’s. He was a nice enough person, mostly at least, he had been told so many times. But people who _liked_ him, more than as some half crazy fellow marine, could be counted with the fingers of one hand.

Marco didn’t answer, not that there was really an answer to give as he had already said it, and the man’s next words went in a completely different line of conversation.

“Tell me, Ace, how do you like being a marine?”

“It’s a job, I guess.” He answered, shrugging. Marco _had_ tried to get him to talk about it in the past, but why he would bring it up now evaded Ace. Perhaps he simply didn’t want to expand on what Ace had asked him. “There’s some cool people and all that.”

And there was, Ace even liked some —very few— of the higher officers. Most were assholes, though.

“That’s it?” Ace nodded. “No drive to uphold justice? To punish criminals?”

Ace chuckled. He would have burst out laughing, cackling even, but he got the feeling that Marco was trying to be serious here.

“Nah, I don’t care much about that,” he answered truthfully. His lack of drive for the marines’ cause had given him trouble more than once. “Fights are fun, of course, and there are real pieces of shit out there, so I guess I want to defeat those.”

This time Marco did look satisfied, but Ace didn’t have a chance to even ponder why before he was blindsided by the man’s next words.

“Have you ever thought of becoming a pirate?”


	11. Chapter 11

_“Have you ever thought of becoming a pirate?”_

There was no violent outburst, no yelling, not even laughter. Ace just stared at him. Long and disconcerted, for what had to be some of the longest minutes in Marco’s life. Had he been someone else, the man would have shifted in place at the intense look directed at him.

“Join the Whitebeard Pirates, you mean?” Ace finally asked in a soft voice, and Marco nodded, both in confirmation and grateful that the silence was over. The boy shook his head. “I can’t become a pirate.”

“Why not?” Marco asked. Now he was the one confused here. Ace had just admitted he didn’t care about justice, and Marco was almost sure he didn’t fall in the category of ‘piece of shit’ in Ace’s mind, if their interactions were anything to go by, and thus he didn’t know what the problem could be.

“Are you worried your grandfather will try to kill you? Pops can take him on, and I could hold my ground against him, too.” He said, voicing the first possible option that came to mind. Ace’s brother was a pirate, that was true, but Marco guessed Garp would react much worse to a grandson dropping off the marines to become a pirate than to one who had always wanted to be one.

Ace chuckled, the sound coming out strangely bitter, and shook his head.

“No, it’s not that. Though gramps would try to beat me back into being a marine. I just can’t, really.”

“Why not?” Marco insisted, and Ace shifted under his gaze. Ace didn’t _shift_ , he hadn’t done so even when he had been intent on hating the blond, and that reaction was what really worried Marco and confirmed his suspicion that he was missing something here. “Ace…”

“You won’t like this.” Ace mumbled and, hadn’t they been alone in a clearing of a forest, Marco wouldn’t have heard him.

“Try me.”

He saw Ace hesitate, even going so far as to bite his lower lip, and that action would have been enough to make Marco kiss him if the situation wasn’t so obviously serious.

“Alright. Just remember I warned you.”

Marco nodded. Judging by how the conversation had gone so far, he had expected Ace to avert his gaze to confess whatever had him so convinced he couldn’t be a pirate, but Ace didn’t, instead looking him straight in the eyes. Marco admired him for that.

“You knew Gol D. Roger, didn’t you?”

Marco nodded once more. He didn’t miss the use of the Pirate King’s real name, a rarely known thing these days, but he guessed that was to be expected of Garp’s grandsons.

“He was my father.”

Marco stared. Ace glared defiantly right back at him. Marco burst out laughing.

"H-Hey! What are you laughing at?!” Ace yelled at him, and Marco tried to stop.

“That’s what worried you so much?” He asked in between chuckles, pressing a hand to his stomach. Seeing Ace’s glare, he finally managed to calm down. “Why would that prevent you from becoming a pirate?”

The look Ace gave him made it clear the boy thought he was stupid for asking that question. Marco bit his lips to stop another bout of laughter.

“Because I’d be like him.” Ace said, scowling.

That statement had Marco sobering up. This was an important matter for Ace; even if he thought the reason to be absurd, he had to address it seriously.

“And that would be a bad thing?”

“Of course it would!” Ace yelled. “I don’t want to be like that bastard!”

Ace moved as if to stand up and Marco took him by the forearm to stop him.

“I don’t know what you’ve heard about him, but Roger wasn’t a bad guy. An idiot? Sure, but not a bad guy. Still, becoming a pirate wouldn’t mean turning into him. You’re you, not your father.”

Ace blinked at him and if Marco had thought earlier the boy looked confused it was because he hadn’t seen the look he was giving him right now. It was as if he didn’t know what to do about his words.

“It doesn’t bother you?” Marco shook his head, smiling softly at him. “Why? Weren’t you enemies with his crew?”

“We were sort of friends, too. Pops and Roger drank together almost as much as they fought each other.”

Seeing that Ace still didn’t seem to know what to think of all of this, Marco leaned forward and gave him a short kiss on the lips.

“You don’t have to answer now. Just think about it, alright? You are you, whatever you choose to do with your life.”

 

* * *

 

 

Ace turned around in the makeshift bed the sails formed, resting his head once again on the chest of a sleeping Marco.

He didn't understand why he had told Marco. It was his secret, and if it was heard by the wrong ears it would mean a death sentence. The only marine aside from gramps who knew was Sengoku, and the only people Ace had ever told himself were Luffy and Sabo. Then, why had he confided in Marco so easily? True, the man couldn't exactly waltz into a marine base and hand him over with a ribbon around his neck —well, technically he _could_ , but Ace _trusted_ him not to. It was a bizarre concept to him.

_"You are you, whatever you choose to do with your life."_

Had he ever chosen? _Truly_ chosen? Sabo would have said that no, he hadn't. It was true he had chosen to become a marine, but the option of being a pirate had never really been an option to him —the shadow of Roger, and the risk of being seen as just 'the Pirate King's son' had always weighed heavily in his mind. Ace had wanted to see the world since he could remember —to get away from the small forest where he had grown up, hidden from that same world— and, without the pirate path open, the marines had seemed the only option.

That belief had only strengthened after what had happened with the Bluejam Pirates back in the Grey Terminal. Pirates were scum. But Luffy was a pirate.

Marco was a pirate.

Were all pirates really scum? Because that belief usually came hand in hand with the one stating that the marines were the good guys. But Ace knew that, though there were good people in the marines, there were also a lot of marines that _were_ scum.

But where did that realization leave him? Even if Ace accepted pirates weren't inherently evil, monsters or pieces of shit, could _he_ become a pirate?

Did he want to?

 

* * *

 

 

Thatch had taken to sleeping in Marco's room. Though sleeping was more of an exaggeration than anything else, as he hadn't managed to get over three hours of relative rest per night since this hell had started.

He mostly stared at the room and let his mind wander. For the room of the responsible First Division Commander who kept the crew running, the place was a mess. Papers piled on the desk so haphazardly Thatch doubted he would be able to find anything there if he tried, clothes strewn across the floor, books piled without any order on the shelves with papers sticking out of them...

Thatch's eyes wandered to the worn out patch of wood on the wall behind the desk where Marco scuffed the heel of his sandal as he worked, and he could almost imagine his friend muttering to himself as he scratched something off of a paper.

The man turned his head and buried his face into the cold part of the pillow on which he hadn't been resting.

 

* * *

 

 

"Marco," Ace called, and Marco turned from where he had been tying up the rope from which their clothes now hung to dry.

"Yeah?"

"What's it like? Being a pirate, I mean."

Marco smiled and walked up to him.

"It's great," the man said, plopping down next to Ace on the grass. "You can do whatever you want. Mostly."

"Mostly?" Ace asked, curious.

"There's stuff that needs to be done to keep a ship running, you know, and everybody's got to help. Also, during battle people's expected to follow orders when given, and the captain's orders are to be obeyed, but aside from that you can do whatever you want. There's only one ironclad rule in our crew."

"And that is?"

"Don't kill a crewmember. If you do, you're _dead_." Marco said this with such vehemence that Ace was once again reminded of how important the crew was for the Whitebeard Pirates.  They were a family, and the more Ace learned about them, the more he realized how much they resembled him and his own brothers. You didn't mess with their family if you valued your life.

They trailed into silence.

"If I were to become a pirate," Ace finally spoke, "I would have to reveal who I am. I don't want to risk people liking me to later hate me once they discover it and that I lied to them. And I don't know if the government would announce it, either. Besides-" A finger covering his lips stopped him. The boy looked up at Marco. He hadn't even realized he had been talking to his knees.

"I don't think anybody will hate you for it. And, if they do, I'll kick their asses."

Ace shook his head.

"You don't have to do that for me."

It was Marco who shook his head this time.

"I'm not saying it only because you're my lover. Pops is as hated as Roger, I bet deep down in Impel Down there's as many people who hate him as people who celebrated Roger's death. Hating you for being Roger's son would be like hating us for being Whitebeard's sons. And hating a person for being someone's child is ridiculous, anyway."

Ace nodded, because he had no words to refute that argument. Then he realized something else the man had said.

 _Lover_. Marco had called him _his lover_.

The heavy atmosphere of the conversation faded off somewhat and a small grin stretched Ace's lips. Marco had given him a lot to think about, but for now the young man leaned forward and captured the pirate's lips with his own.

He would think later, now he wanted to test how those words felt in his body, not only in his mind.


	12. Chapter 12

If someone had drawn a sword and started swinging it around, they would most likely have been able to cut the threads of tension holding the whole crew by every single nerve. There were practically no islands left to search, and they still had two missing brothers to find and. If they didn't find them in the next few hours, they were out of ideas on what to do afterwards.

But Thatch wasn't thinking about that, because if he did then he wouldn't be able to resist the urge to punch and kick everything that came into sight. He was a commander, and as such he had to stay in control for the sake of the rest of the crew

Sometimes, he hated having responsibilities.

Thatch really wanted to kill something.

 

* * *

 

 

Booze was one of the material things Whitebeard valued the most in this world, but in that moment he didn’t give it a second thought when the bottle he had been drinking from fell from his hand and crashed into the floor. He stood up, not answering the concerned questions of his children, and walked closer to the railing, where he could see the small and slowly approaching island.

“Marco,” he said, and just like that the depressed mood that had possessed the crew for the last couple of weeks was replaced by excitement, as the news that Pops had felt Marco’s presence spread through the ship. Soon, other haki users could feel him too, and games, that in many cases developed into fights, broke along the deck to decide who would go into the island. When it became clear that nobody was willing to stay back, the results of the games be damned, Whitebeard laughed and said they could all go; it was a deserted island, after all, and there were no other ships around to worry about.

By this point, someone had already called the other ships to give them the good news.

As soon as they were in swimming distance, people began to jump overboard and heading to the beach. Others went to lower the boats, for those who weren’t as good swimmers and for the Devil Fruit users.

 

* * *

 

 

Ace was abruptly woken up by the feeling of over a hundred presences approaching the island. He sat up on the grass, body tense and prepared to fight.

“What the fuck?” he muttered, turning to Marco, intent on discussing what to do. He blinked when he saw the man still sound asleep, one arm moving closer to Ace as if intent on reclaiming the lost heat. Huh. Ace would have sworn Marco’s Kenbunshoku Haki was better than his. He swallowed. It looked like he already knew who their visitors were.

Of course Marco wouldn’t wake up just by feeling the presence of his crewmates; the man knew them, was used to them and knew they weren’t a threat.

Suddenly nervous –he doubted that what was about to come would be pretty for him—Ace placed a hand on Marco’s shoulder and shook it.

“Oi, Marco.” The man groaned, and Ace had to dodge the far too agile hand that tried to pull him down. “Wake up, your crew’s here.”

And just like that, Marco’s eyes were open. A second later he was sitting next to Ace, and a wide grin stretched his lips.

“About time those idiots found us.” Despite the words, Ace could tell the man was both happy and immensely relieved to finally be in the presence of his crew.

Ace himself felt conflicted about the situation. He was glad for Marco, he really was, but he wasn’t looking forward to the encounter. Aside from the fact that he was a marine, he knew it was likely that someone would recognize him –because he _had_ been a little fire-happy back during the battle, and as much as he sort of hated this small boring island, he would miss it, too.

“Ace.”

“Yeah?” He turned to look at Marco, who had leaned closer to him while he had been distracted.

“I’m not asking you to decide _right now_ , but what about a ride to the next island?”

Oh, Ace wasn’t refusing that. Not only wouldn’t he mind spending more time with Marco, no amount of possible future glares or awkwardness, even violence, would convince him to retake his attempts at building a raft.

“And I guess you’ll use the time to try to convince me, right?”

Marco grinned.

“Good to see you know me.”

Ace chuckled and, just because he could, pulled Marco in for a kiss that soon turned heated. Of course, that was the moment the first group of pirates choose to walk into the clearing.

“ _Son of a bitch_.”

They parted, a clearly amused smirk on Marco’s lips, and turned to look at the men. There were some pretty amusing expressions amongst them, but the man at the head of the group, the one who had let out the above sentence, sported an impressive combination of extreme relief, anger and annoyance.

 _Thatch, Fourth Division Commander_ , Ace’s brain supplied.

“Hey, guys,” Marco greeted them, standing up as he did. He offered Ace a hand, who took it because he would have if they had been alone and he wasn’t about to let their company affect them.

“What the _fuck? **”**_ Thatch demanded, anger taking the lead in his emotions. “We’ve been worried _sick_ about you, and you’ve been fucking pretty boy over there,“ Ace growled at the description, but was ignored, ”all this time?”

“Not really,” Marco said, and Thatch blinked, caught off guard. The blond let the other’s anger abate slightly before adding, “the fucking part is fairly recent.”

This time it was Thatch who growled, throwing his hands up in the air. The other ten men or so in the group looked mostly relieved, though some were amused as well and others had an expression that could be read as something like ‘everything is right in the world again.’

Ace feared an awkward silence might fall, but Thatch took care of it by pointing out something that _would_ have ensured an awkward situation for most people.

“You two could get dressed.”

As things were, neither Marco nor Ace cared about having been caught naked and making out, and none of the pirates seemed to particularly mind, either. Ace went to where their clothes were discarded and put on his pants, ignoring his shirt because after the nice days of nakedness he couldn’t see himself withstanding that confining fabric pressed around his torso, and then went to pick his boots from where they had been thrown to at some point in the day.

By the time he was ready, Marco was putting on his unnecessarily complicated sandals and his crewmates had wandered around their improvised camp, peering at what they had managed to put together.

Thatch looked at him, and gave a curious look at his clothes.

“You a marine?”

“Nah, I lived here alone till Marco landed his ass on the beach,” he deadpanned because, really, it wasn’t like there had been anybody else but the marines and the pirates who could have landed here after that storm.

Thatch raised his eyebrows, but before he could come up with a response of his own, a new group of pirates burst through the trees. This time, as Marco wasn’t naked and wrapped over someone as hot as Ace, there were a lot of happy and relieved greetings, and the commander was soon surrounded by relieved crewmates.

It wasn’t until a couple of minutes later that any of the newcomers noticed Ace.

“YOU!” A man in his middle thirties and one arm held in a sling yelled, pointing his good hand at Ace. The glare the man sported was explanation enough of where they had met.

That yell, of course, drew everyone’s attention.

“You know him?” Someone asked the obvious, dumb question.

“That’s the fucking fire brat!”

And the pirates from the ship the marines had fought must have talked about him, because just like that the easy atmosphere was gone, replaced by wariness and some hands drawn closer to weapons. Ace noticed Tharch, still standing close by, rested his right hand on the handle of one of his swords.

“Oh, come on,” Marco scoffed, and rolled his eyes in what could only be a deliberately exaggerated way, “he’s fine. Stop being idiots.”

Marco walked closer to Ace, ignoring the dubious looks directed his way, and placed a hand on Ace’s shoulder.

“Guys, this is Ace. Ace, these idiots are my brothers.”

There were no acknowledgements to Marco’s half-assed introductions. Instead, a man a couple of years older than Ace spoke.

“Marco, you realize who this guy is, right?”

“Yeah, of course. He’s a marine and fought us. Nothing new, how many of our allies started off by trying to kill us?” Ace wasn’t sure if that question was a statement to how incredible the Whitebeard Pirates were or how crazy they were. Probably both.

The pirates looked at each other, and it was clear that wasn’t what they meant.

“He’s Garp’s grandson. It was in the newspaper.” One said.

A scoff from Thatch made it clear the commander didn’t see that as a problem. Probably because, being stronger, he wasn’t scared shitless of Ace’s grandfather like most pirates were.

“Oh, that.” Marco shrugged. “So?” Then he turned to Ace, and the boy froze for a moment at the look the man gave him. They may not have known each other for too long, but they _had_ spent most of the time together, and Ace was pretty sure he had learned to interpret the man’s expressions well. That look was a question, as if asking him permission for something, and it didn’t take a genius to know what would Marco ask him permission to do.

Ace swallowed. It was a matter of time, he thought, before that cat would be out of the bag. He wasn’t an idiot, he didn’t like the government and knew eventually he would drop out of the marines, even if –and it wasn’t very likely, if he was honest with himself—he finally decided to refuse Marco’s offer. Better to get it out of the way as soon as possible.

He nodded.

“Ace is also Roger’s son.”


	13. Chapter 13

Silence filled the beach and the Moby Dick’s deck as a group of crewmembers transported William’s body —which they had just unearthed and covered with a sheet— onboard.

The atmosphere surrounding the crew was the most contradictory it had been in years: the somber air of mourning was almost tangible and yet, at the same time, they all wanted to throw a party to celebrate that Marco was alive.

Thatch, once the other commander had gotten dressed, had hugged his brother and then punched him, hard enough that his own hand hurt, for worrying them sick while he was having so much fun with the marine boy.

Up until a few minutes ago, and it would undoubtedly continue once William was settled in the infirmary, the crew had been gossiping like teenagers, because Marco’s little bombshell about his marine fuck buddy had spread and everybody who heard about it felt the need to tell someone else.

Thatch himself didn't know what to think. Contrary to many of the younger and most recent members of the crew who generally believed Pops and Roger had just been enemies and saw the boy's relationship to the late Pirate King as a problem, Thatch was more concerned by Ace's relationship to Garp. Sure, being Roger's son meant that the kid had to be strong as fuck, but it was his relationship to the vice admiral what made him really unpredictable. If the brat started throwing cannonballs around then Thatch would have some serious words with Marco.

But Marco seemed to like the brat, and Thatch would have to beat said brat's ass if he started spouting out crap about justice.

* * *

 

"Good to see you, son."

Ace's eyebrows twitched, and he barely refrained from raising them.

He was pretty sure no one would believe it if someone were to tell them that Whitebeard had hugged his first mate, relieved to see that he was alright. But there was the proof right in front of Ace, and he couldn't say he was surprised, not after everything Marco had told him about the man.

"I heard something very interesting," the captain said once Marco pulled back, and his eyes wandered to Ace. The boy squared his shoulders. "Roger's brat, huh?"

“Yeah, got a problem?” Ace snapped, maybe more aggressively than he had intended. Someone yelled at him to be more respectful.

Whitebeard just laughed and called him a cheeky brat. The man seemed about to say something else, but Marco looked at him and shook his head.

Ace was sure he had been about to be invited to join the crew again.

* * *

 

Ace had been kidnapped.

That was a good development, much better than the previous sentence would suggest. Once it had become clear that the boy wouldn’t go all marine on the crew –and, really, Marco couldn’t blame his brothers for worrying when his lover’s grandfather was a notorious nutjob—and the blond had assured them Ace wouldn’t attack them, the crew had been much more willing to start relaxing around him.

Unsurprisingly, the other commanders had been the first ones to approach Ace. Izo had taken it upon himself to get rid of the remnants of the boy’s marine uniform, and had sent a search party to bring any clothes that would fit him. He had decided to leave Ace shirtless, which Marco approved.

Right now, Thatch was trying to get Ace drunk –most of the crew was drunk already at this point and there was even some unconscious people around—and Marco was torn between wanting to see his lover under the effects of alcohol and wondering if it could even happen or if Ace’s fire power would simply burn the alcohol off before it could have any effect on him. There was also the possibility that getting Ace wasted was practically impossible because he was more interested on inhaling any food that got within arm’s reach and didn’t have much time left to drink.

“He seems like a good kid.”

Marco looked up at his father, who by now was done eating and was drinking from one of his huge bottles of sake. The man looked distinctly amused at the sight of Thatch trying to pry Ace away from a bowl of noodles long enough to shove a jug of booze down his throat. Whitebeard’s other hand, the one not holding the bottle up to his mouth, was resting on Marco’s back as well as its size allowed it to.

Marco might have been acting like a clingy five year old the whole party and been using Pops’ leg as his seat.

“Yeah, he is.” He took a drink from his own bottle. “Though he’s not much like Roger.”

“That good or bad?”

“Good. He’s not as much of an idiot.”

Whitebeard laughed.

“That’s not hard.”

* * *

 

Ace dropped down on Marco’s bed and sighed happily, stretching his arms to both sides. He had missed having as much food as he wanted to eat, and had taken full advantage of it. He had to admit, though, that he had been wrong in the past when he had thought he knew what a party was like: the marines really were amateurs in comparison to the Whitebeard Pirates.

“What are you doing?”

Ace didn’t bother to open his eyes at Marco’s question, but he did turn his head in the man’s general direction.

“Getting to know your bed.”

“You’re not gonna fall asleep now, are you?”

“Why not?”

Ace heard fabric rustling.

“It’s the first time we have a bed.”

Now Ace did open his eyes, and was met with the sight of Marco’s shirtless torso bathed in the light from the nightstand lamp. He grinned.

“Right. Bed. Get here,” he practically ordered, sitting up and kicking his boots off.

Ace hadn’t noticed when Marco had taken off his sandals, but he watched with interest as the man took off his pants before coming to sit down, entirely naked, on the bed next to him.

“Tell me, Ace, have you ever topped?”

* * *

 

They were maybe a couple of hours away from the first inhabited island since their rescue and Ace was growing nervous. He didn’t want to reach it, he certainly didn’t want to stay there and part ways with the Whitebeard Pirates, but he didn’t know how to bring up the topic. He sucked at asking for things, and was much better at just taking them.

He should have known he didn’t need to worry.

Barely half an hour later, while he was eating lunch next to Marco in the ship’s mess hall, Whitebeard caught his attention.

“You joining the crew, brat?”

“Yeah, sure,” Ace answered, not even stopping to think about it. Next to him, Marco smiled.

Thatch turned to look at the captain.

“You okay with them? Isn’t this, like incest or something?”

Ace didn’t even hesitate before kicking the man, and no one looked at him funny.

* * *

 

Marco advanced carefully through the mostly deserted streets of the town, Ace following close behind. It was the middle of the night and both the darkness and the lack of activity gave them the perfect cover. The Moby Dick waited for them anchored in a mostly hidden beach at the other side of the island; they had carefully navigated around the island to ensure nobody spotted their ship.

“You sure about this?” he asked, stopping to look over the corner before turning to the next street. Deserted, perfect.

“Of course I am. This sounds fun,” Ace answered, grinning. Marco grinned back and they continued to advance.

These last few days the papers had speculated about Marco's supposed death, the means of which had given way for many too comments on Marco's almost legendary immortality, which wasn't good for his reputation. At this point there had been even some jokes about him, and a particularly brave and stupid marine —a rear admiral in the base this island housed— had said his fame hadn't really been earned, and the reason his bounty was so high was due to his position next to Whitebeard.

So, naturally, reducing this marine base to rubble and dust had seemed like the best way to refute all the rumors about his death. That it would also serve to announce Ace's change of side was just a plus.

* * *

 

Sengoku groaned, and took advantage of the privacy of his office to drop his head on the desk in a most undignified manner.

On the couch, Garp was laughing his ass off. Oh, the man had raved and yelled –even going so far as destroying some furniture—when they first received the news of Ace attacking a marine base with none other than fucking Marco the Phoenix, but then the vice admiral had realized that if Ace was attacking a marine base it was because he was _alive_ , and the man was currently laughing off his relief. He would go back to being mad eventually, and Sengoku hoped he did so somewhere that wasn’t his office.

Worst part, however, was that this situation was a mess.

Oh, sure, Sengoku had thought that the fact Ace had been born had been a problem to begin with, but then the kid had joined the marines –he was very vocal about despising pirates, too—and the problem had basically solved itself. He was a decent enough guy, far more mentally balanced than Garp, but Sengoku should have known that things were too good to last. Of course the little shit had to go and meet the Whitebeard Pirates who –and Sengoku wouldn’t admit this out loud even under torture—were far more decent than the average pirate, and decide to join them.

Which left Sengoku with the problem of justifying his decision to keep _Roger’s son_ around –the government didn’t know yet, Ace being Garp’s grandson had been enough of a background check to let him join the marines, but it wouldn’t take them long to figure it out once they investigated a little—and it had to be something better than ‘he’s my stupid friend’s grandson, and said stupid friend assured me the kid hated pirates too much to follow in his father’s footsteps.’

Garp might be an irresponsible idiot, and nobody would be all that surprised that he had just gone and protected the son of a man who was supposed to be his worst enemy, but people expected Sengoku to be responsible.

The fleet admiral stood up and walked to the couch. First of all, he had to kick a relieved grandfather out of his office before he decided to attempt to kill one of the world’s greatest heroes.

* * *

 

Everybody at the table turned around, startled, when almost hysterical voice tore through all the conversations, and they turned as one to look at the blond young man who was clutching a newspaper in one of his gloved hands, tears trailing, unchecked, down his cheeks.

The girl next to him shifted in her seat to place a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

"N-Nothing," he said, and despite the tears and the stutter he sounded immensely relieved.

Sabo turned the newspaper around to show the cover page to her friend, a huge grin taking over his face. There, in huge bold letters, read _The Phoenix, Alive_ and in the line below, written in a slightly smaller print, _The Hero's Grandson, a Pirate?_ Most of the page was taken by a picture of Marco the Phoenix and the boy that has been said a few days prior to be Garp's grandson, Portgas D. Ace, standing back to back and grinning in what seemed to be the middle of friendly banter.

"Is that your brother?" Koala asked, smiling. Sabo had been so worried... she was really glad to see Ace was fine.

"Yeah, and it looks like he's seen reason." He turned the paper to look at it. "Maybe I should send some booze to the Whitebeard Pirates, as a thank you present."

* * *

 

Nami was browsing the newspaper at breakfast, elbows resting on the table and pages held open between her hands, when she heard an exclamation and the paper was ripped from her hands.

Annoyed —and here she had thought the paper at least would be safe from her idiot of a captain, as he couldn't care less about the news around the world— she aimed her best death glare at Luffy and was about to rip him off when she paused, thrown off by the huge grin taking up his face as he looked at the cover page.

"Luffy," she asked, uncertain.

Her captain laughed.

"Look, Nami!" He turned the paper around and pointed at the marine-turned-pirate on the picture. "This is Ace, my brother!"

Nami blinked.

"... Okay."

She really shouldn't be surprised that some crazy and ridiculously strong guy was related to Luffy.

Her captain looked at the picture and laughed again.

"I should buy him a hat."

**The End**


End file.
